When the Sun Sleeps
by Silenced Cry
Summary: Rikku is something close to daring, that’s why Gippal likes her. Yuna is something close to perfect, that’s why she’s untouchable. [Chapter 7 up]
1. Chapter 1

_**When the Sun Sleeps**_

**Disclaimer: **Square-Enix owns Final Fantasy X-2. I do not.

**Author's Note: **Just so you know, the format for this fiction is a little bit different. I wrote each chapter in triplets -that is, three **one-shots **from each character's POV make up each chapter. Each progression of chapters is meant to show a progression in their ages, their lives and their developing personalities. Also, this is somewhat of an AU because Sin does not exist and summoners are therefore, not required.

I only ask that you** don't flame** without an articulate justification of your reasoning.

**In Defense of _When the Sun Sleeps _:** Lastly, I wrote this out of bitterness for my own friends -two friends, which is ironic, really -though the story is mostly light-hearted at first. If you don't like the story, don't read. If you don't like interaction between Yuna, Rikku and Gippal, don't read. Crickets chirp If you ARE reading, just go with the flow of the story and ask yourself: why should Yuna be coupled with Tidus and Rikku with Gippal? In real life, things change and people change. If the situation had changed, maybe, so would the couples...

_**Chapter One**_

**Yuna**

1

_When I first arrived in Besaid, I remembered thinking that it looked like an overturned hourglass. I remembered waves and the splash of water lapping at my heels, sneaking forward then stealing back. In my six-year-old mind, I remembered wondering when I would go back home…_

Father's hand was warm and rough against mine. He could sense my anxiety and sometimes pressed his thumb against my palm to reassure me. I grasped for my mother's hand, but she didn't link her fingers with mine as firmly as father's had.

"When are we going home?"

Father looked down at me and smiled gently, "This is our home now, _tynmehk_."

Usually the Al Bhed name would make my mother smile but she let go of my hand to go talk with the boy unloading our belongings from the boat. Father followed after her. I couldn't hear their hushed voices, but I didn't have much curiosity for that either.

I felt a light touch on my back, fading and falling with gravity. I looked behind me, then to the ground to find a palm nut. A childish giggle forced me to look up to find the source. It was then that I saw her. Eyes so vivid green that they threatened the olive tinted palm fronds and the long, flowing tendrils of leaves that she hid behind. Blonde spilled messily about her shoulders and careless braids were tossed about as she suddenly dashed backwards with a spurt of energy and threw a deliberate glance backwards, willing me to chase her. She was bounding, leaping with legs that knew every tangle and curve of the jungle, and I stumbled and chased her feverishly because I thought that this was a fun game. Her scattered laughter was infectious, and long after we stopped running; we both collapsed on the ground and smiled true smiles at each other. And even without fully understanding it, or questioning it, we both knew that this was what true friendship was like. These were the moments for careless laughter and large but unbecoming smiles, tangled hair and sunshine.

She grabbed a pile of sand in one hand and let it slip from her fingers and then looked at me. In an unspoken understanding that only children have, I swept up a large mound of sand together with two hands and she poured her own handful on top.

"What's your name?" she asked simply, keeping her eyes steadily focused on placing a few choice pebbles around the edge of our sand pile.

I picked a white flower from a tangle of ferns near my feet and examined it, thinking it to be pretty. My fingers pushed the thick stem into the sand.

She looked at me expectantly, and in my shyness I looked down and pressed my finger into the sand and slid it across to form the familiar letters of my name.

A careful frown flit across her face as she tried to sound it, mouth forming the syllables of my name.

"Yu-na" she said, and then smiled. I smiled back.

We played like this everyday, wandering away from our parents to have fun by ourselves. I knew I was happy when we ran by the shore, collecting shells and she slung her arm across my shoulders and leaned her head against my own and said, "You and me. We're sisters now, Yuna"

_Sisters_, she had said with so much confidence and innocent faith. It was so easy to believe her.

**Rikku**

2

_The first time I met Gippal, I remember a dash of custard coloured hair and mud. I can recall the impact of his arm on my chest as he ran, and an unwelcome taste of pain as I met the ground. I remember textures of pink and white and the stinging of my first wound…_

And it was all because of _him_. Tears that promised to burn at the back of eyes kept my anger stirring.

I looked at him hard through my shifting braids, thinking, _he's a stupid, mean boy_…_and I never want to be friends with him_.

He tossed his head back with clumsy laughter that spilled and clattered with the chortling of his friends. Shaggy hair leapt across his eyes then fell to the side as he shook with laughter, holding his sides to keep anymore from escaping. I felt gentle hands fix my dress where it had twisted and torn slightly from the rough rocks and knew that it was Yuna, always trying to mend what was broken.

My lips twisted into as much of a snarl as I could muster at seven years of age, and heard a voice blurt out, "I don't like you."

Yuna's small hands, so similar to my own, stopped their busy work of trying to tie a ribbon securely, and I realized that the voice was mine – shaky and pitifully wrought with emotion that I should've hid to seem strong. Yuna tugged my hand gently, too shy and afraid to say that she wanted to go back home. I pulled her to my side, refusing to give in. _We are strong together_, I thought in my childish confidence.

His friends smirked at him with knowing and expectation, waiting for a comeback. Gippal sauntered over to us like he expected to take something from us and enjoy it secretly.

I pushed my chin up and straightened my shoulders defiantly, "I don't like you", I repeated.

Green eyes much like my own stared back at me. A shadow from a moving palm flitted across our golden bodies and his eyes almost looked brown.

"That's too bad", he said with ease, "…I like you."

He smiled at me funnily and glanced at Yuna who bowed her head immediately. His friends hadn't heard and he changed his smile to fool them into thinking that he had insulted me instead.

For no reason, the tears that I had been trying to keep back for so long began to fall. The boys' laughter faded as they ran off along the beach, and he smiled back at us victoriously.

When we ran back home, with tears on Yuna's pale cheeks to match my own, Pops scolded me for getting mud on my new dress and dried Yuna's tears because she didn't have a father to do it for her.

I felt angry as the soft texture of my dress became coarse with salt water from the ocean, and then scared at the same time when Yuna told me not to look down at my knee because the rocks had torn the skin and an unfamiliar red had left trails down my leg.

I remember the feeling of water lapping against our calves as we dipped the material into the water, using rough soap that hardly had any suds, to wash my dress. I remembered the funny smile and the green eyes, and then knew for sure that I want to play with the boy with shaggy, blond hair again –even if he pushes me in the mud.

_Looking back now, it is easy for me to say that Gippal and I became friends and enemies at the same time._

**Gippal**

**3 **

_There isn't much that I care to remember from my childhood. The things that usually stuck out the most for me was repairing machina, a wicked scar that slashed across my arm from playing with shuriken when old man Cid told me not to, and tons of lectures. The embarrassing thing is, I can remember the stupid little nothings of everyday life in Besaid…_

Our clothes are wet and itchy against our skin where the saltwater has made it harden roughly. The chaffing of it reminds me of the Old man's constant nagging: sometimes it is harder to ignore than other times, especially when his words come close to scratching me like brambles. He gets especially agitated when he sees me with Rikku though, and it gives me a small thrill to know that years of pranks could not affect him as my company to his daughter does.

Old man Cid is always warning Rikku not to "associate with the likes of that ruffian" –whatever that means –but she never listens.

But, I like it when others dislike me because it gives me a title, it means that I'm something close to dangerous, and that satisfies me a little bit more than it should, I think. Rikku doesn't mind because she's something close to daring, which is almost like being dangerous.

That is why I tease her, that's why I double-dared her to dive off the cliffs with me, and that's why we're both soaking wet through and through with stupid smiles on our faces that resonate accomplishment.

I should be thinking of the small sailing boat that Cid is helping me to repair…early morning weapons practice…something, _anything_, except the way that Rikku's shoulder is brushing against mine as we walk. I can't help thinking that I want to hold her hand, or place my arm around her shoulders like I've seen her do with Yuna. I don't know what to do with my hands, so I tug one of her braids a bit too roughly and sprint forwards, knowing that she'll chase after me. I'm older than her by a year, and my twelve-year-old speed will guarantee that she won't catch up to me until we reach the stone steps of the temple where Yuna is waiting.

What can I say? I was something close to dangerous, but I was nothing close to courageous.

■□■


	2. Chapter 2

_**When the Sun Sleeps**_

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Rikku, Yuna or Gippal or the places mentioned. FFX-2 is © Square-Enix

**Author's Note: **I hope I didn't mangle the characters up too badly. The first chapter was set in past tense, but the chapters that follow will drift between past and present. I wasn't really thinking about what tense I was writing in because some of the scenes require present tense while some occur as memories that the characters had happened upon. Either way, the characters will act and speak as they are, caught in the age that is portrayed.

Thank you to those who cared enough to review, and for those who bothered to read (as I can see from the number of hits)

_**Chapter Two**_

**Yuna**

**4 **

From our height, the smoke from the temple looks like a silken grey scarf, unraveling with the confident breeze. It's a scarf like Lulu's, I decide, the one that has tiny beads here and there that look like little pearls with the moonlight reflected on them.

My thumb twirls around my index finger absently, trying to coil the flexible stem of a small flower around my finger to form a ring. The petals are weak in their softness, pliable and easily torn, but I like the colour -a bright yellow similar to the shade of a quartered mango.

I peer into the basket looped around my wrist -the flower is too small to be added to the collection. I smile and raise my fingers in front of me; this flower will be my own.

Rikku grumbles and digs her nails into the sides of her arms, "It's so _cold_ here. Why did they tell us to pick flowers _all_ the way over here on the farthest hill!"

It was more of a complaint than a question, but I answered her anyway.

"All of the prettiest flowers grow here, and you want the temple to look pretty too, don't you? Especially since all the important people from Bevelle are coming. Everyone's busy with other tasks, so we should work hard as well."

Rikku gave me a doubtful look then snatched a flower from its stem without looking and shoved it into my basket.

"They just wanted to get rid of us," she mutters with some ounce of betrayal.

I watched as she flopped onto the grass and spread her legs in front of her, green eyes looking at the leather straps of her sandals without really seeing them.

Plucking another flower from a tangle of vines, I frowned thoughtfully, "No, they wouldn't do that."

She pouted gloomily and tears away some of the grass by her side without forgiveness -just like Gippal, she doesn't know what to do with her hands when she is at rest. I sat down softly beside her and hugged my legs close to my body, brushing her tangled hair to the side and combing through it with my fingers. When Rikku is angry, she appears to be sad and subdued. She is the greyness of a churning sky before the first rumble of thunder begins a storm.

"Pops has to go to another _stupid_ meeting today. Its because those old men from Bevelle and Bikanel are congre...congregat-" she stumbles over a word that Uncle Cid has fed to her," _meeting_ here at the temple."

Rikku sighs with a true amount of despair and mimics my position, curling into herself.

"He never has time for me anymore."

Her words are muffled against her knees. Rikku won't cry in front of me, she rarely gives in to tears, but she will hide her face anyway; moments later she will brush away her long bangs by herself and practice a smile. I won't insult her by offering these small comforts for her because Rikku is confident and resilient -she wants Uncle Cid to notice this in her, and smile at her with a softened look to his eye while he says, "You remind me so much of your mother". But this won't happen today, so Rikku continues to hide her face, even as I tuck a beautiful flower with no name behind her ear.

"I'm sure Uncle Cid wishes he has more time to spend with you too. He is probably just as sad as you are" I fold my hands together and rest them in my lap.

"I'm not _sad_, Yuna" she responds swiftly.

A new voice breaks the thin veil of tension: Gippal.

"Hey!"

His voice is breathy, "They need help down at the docks. Come be useful for once."

Both Rikku and I know not to retort because the roughened contours of Gippal's personality balance out the softness of my own and the vibrancy in Rikku's. _This is how we fit together_.

Gippal tags Rikku's arm and he leaps forward and halts in motion, a challenging look in his eyes.

"Race you down" he indicates the steep slope of the hill with a swift flicker of his eyes.

"Don't be an idiot, I have better things to do than run down a hill."

He makes a non-committal gesture with his hand (clearly not impressed), "Whatever. I'm taking Yuna though."

Gippal tears the basket from my hands and pushes it into Rikku's. In the breadth of a gasp, he has me on his back, my legs held in front of him with his careful grip and my arms looped instinctively around his neck. He tears down the hill and I try not to scream as he weaves around the tangle of underbrush and vines. Gippal laughs when I hide my face in the crook of his neck, trying to curl away from the feeling of air whooshing past me. He likes to push me into his world of recklessness with him.

Rikku is beside us, matching his speed with a terribly concealed grin. Half of the flowers that were previously in the basket are now trailing behind us. Gippal smirks, "Gotta do better than that Cid's little girl".

He grips my legs tighter, "Hold on, little bird", and dashes forward.

This time, I do scream.

**Rikku**

**5 **

The sun is so hot on my shoulders, arms and legs. It feels like that time, when I was very little -and didn't know any better- and I tried to touch fire. But that was only because it looked sparkly and Pops was roasting palm nuts on it, and how can something like _that_ be bad for you?

I sigh and rub a hand across my forehead. Yuna giggles beside me but I am too tired to ask her why. It'll only be until I get home that I realize that I've been walking around with mud smeared on my cheeks like last time, except it was watermelon juice instead.

Yuna clucks her tongue and pats her thighs and the dog runs up ahead, making the ducks flutter their wings before settling down again.

"I hate chores! They're so..." I pause, try to remember a bigger word for what I'm trying to say, then finish lamely, "**_boring._**"

_Every_ single day, Pops makes us take all of the animals to the grove near the forest so that: the ducks can eat the snails (which "damage crops"), the dog can "get some exercise" and the goat can "eat something other than our clothing". That's what Pops says every time I ask him, even though he gets red in the face when I continue to pester him about it, which means 'Stop'. Gippal doesn't know that it means 'stop' though, that's why I'm not allowed to play with him.

Yuna finds a bit of seaweed -still wet- by a patch of grass and tries to tempt the mallard into hurrying forward for it. The slick, green head shimmers in the sun, and the dull, brown lady ducks waddle up a bit. Usually, I like to try to gather the little yellow and brown puff of a duckling in my hands before the mother sees, but its so _hot_, and doing anything other than dragging the branch I found in a ditch around, making thick lines in the mud as I walk, is not worth it.

The little ducklings stumble over nothing as they try to catch up to their mommies. Something tugs stubbornly at my wrist. I almost forgot about the itchy rope tied around my wrist -and the annoying part is that a goat is attached to the other end. The family goat that Gippal insists on naming 'Rikku' even though it's a boy and 'Mr. Gruffs' is a much better name anyway.

Mr. Gruffs has some of the rope in his mouth, chewing at it and tugging at it when I try to move ahead.

"Yuna!" I yell.

She looks back in between clucking at the ducks and trying not to lose sight of the dog.

"Try feeding him some grass", she offers.

"Grass never helps," I mutter, but she is too busy with the ducks up ahead to hear me.

The goat and I have a staring contest while he chews at the rope -I don't think he likes me very much. I poke his hoof with the stick I've been carrying even though I know that it's a mean thing to do, but it is so hot. Mr. Gruffs doesn't care at all that he's been poked which proves that he could never be named 'Rikku', because I would retaliate if _I_ was poked.

I plop down on the ground beside him, ignoring the squish of soft mud on my legs. I try to tug the rope out of its mouth half-heartedly, and then pout when he doesn't let go.

"I should call you 'Gippal' instead", I mutter.

"Rikku! Hurry up!"

Yuna's voice is distant already.

All of a sudden, I can taste mud because it's all around me, covering me and _moving_. Gippal tears off from somewhere behind me, and the goat is running for its life, jumping and bleating and pulling me with him.

"Idiot!"

My voice comes out garbled and sputtering, full of mud, even as I run with the goat, spitting as much as I can to get the awful taste out of my mouth. The worst part is that Gippal is laughing as he is running, teasing me between smirks.

I don't like him...at all...well, maybe just a little...but _only_ sometimes.

Even though I fall on my face in the grass when the goat decides to stop suddenly, all I want to do is shove Gippal's face in the mud and sit on top of his back so that he has no choice but to swallow some of it before I get off. But Gippal is already smiling at me in his stupid way, and ruffles my hair as if he's so much older than me. And I already forgive him just a little bit.

"You shouldn't be so clumsy, Cid's little girl."

And the forgiveness is gone in a flash...

**Gippal**

**6 **

"Where did you get that one?"

Yuna picks up one of the coins that I spilled out of my pouch and onto the floor. She holds it up with two fingers and lets it glint in the sun. I try not to smile too widely when Rikku leans over my shoulder to look at the coin that Yuna's holding.

"I got that one when I went sailing to Kilika. I found it in the old ruins -its gotta be _really_ valuable."

Yuna's eyes glint with amazement at my boasting and Rikku looks bored- she never believes my stories. I watch as she rises; I complain when she walks near my treasures because she still drags her feet when she walks and always manages to kick sand onto me. Her green shorts crinkle when she crouches down and picks up a feather from my pile. She lifts it to her eyes then makes a face, "I bet you got this from a seagull. It's not worth anything, it's not even special."

I snatch the feather from her, "It isn't from a seagull."

I place the feather in Yuna's waiting palm and continue on as if I hadn't been insulted (because, what does Rikku know anyway?).

"That feather came from a Couerl when I went to the Calm Lands. It brings good luck."

Yuna touches the spine of the feather and admires; Rikku rolls her eyes.

"Oh this is pretty. What about this?"

Yuna puts the feather aside and points to a hand-painted card that shimmers when you twist it because it has something that looks like gold foil bordering it in a fancy pattern.

"That's a tarot card," I explain. "When I went to Kilika, there was some old lady in a tent. She could read fortunes and she taught me how too. I can tell you your future," Yuna got really excited then and clasped her hands together in front of her. I closed my eyes and folded my arms over my chest, grinning, "I can tell you your future, _if_ you give me something in return."

"Oh! Um..."

Yuna searches herself for something, and then stops at her hair where a small, white flower rests. She untangles it from her hair and holds it in front of me, "Will this do?"

I take it from her and pretend to examine it, looking for faults.

"It'll do", I say and tuck it into my pocket. I grab her hand and Rikku squawks loudly.

"What?" I smile through my irritation. "It's a palm reading."

I take Yuna's small hand in mine and open her palm so that I can see the soft lines. I trace the one slanting up to her finger and explain, "That's your health line. You'll be very healthy in the future."

Rikku scoffs, but I trace another line, one stretching across her palm to curl around her thumb. "That's your happiness. But look -" I point to where the line fades a little for a long while before it darkens again, "It gets disturbed in this section. Maybe something will happen that makes you sad."

Yuna frowns and makes a small sound. I find another line, one that intersects the previous one, "That's your life line. It's long so you don't have to worry."

There are two other lines criss-crossing together and disappearing halfway to the middle of her palm. I point, "Your love line. Looks like two boys, little bird."

I wiggle my brows at her and she laughs a little, blushing. I touch one of the lines with my finger and trail it down to her wrist because I know she's ticklish and it'll make Rikku jealous.

"Quit fooling around, Gippal." She turns to Yuna, "You don't believe all that nonsense do you?"

Yuna's face shows conflict. I know because sometimes I get caught between the two of them. It's because all of us know that there are bonds that you can stretch a little, and bonds that break right away if you do something wrong.

Rikku huffs and sits down by my other side. She crouches, ready to flee if she has to, and looks at her palm then frowns at me, "I don't want you to read mine."

I shrug and she gets up again.

"I wasn't going to read yours anyway. Not even if you asked _nicely_."

I frown; she doesn't take the bait.

My hands find something smooth and dry, my fingers knowing that I have picked up the small bone. I hold it up to my eyes so that they can both see it.

"This," I continue proudly, "is a bone from a Sand Worm."

Rikku snatches it out of my hands and puts one hand on her hip, "It looks just like a chicken bone."

I open my mouth to argue back, but she flings it over her shoulder and puts the other hand on her hip, saying, "Besides, Sand Worms don't even have bones."

I run to the direction where she threw it, hoping that it didn't reach the water. When I find it, Rikku is turned to me and Yuna's gaze has also shifted from a shiny pebble in my pile to me, almost agreeing with Rikku without openly saying it.

"How would you know? You haven't even left the island once, Rikku. Besides, I killed it myself with just a stick. Everyone in Bikanel knows about it, just ask them. They even built a statue of me because I was so brave."

Rikku sits down again, eyeing me tiredly. She takes the bone in her hands again, examining it very closely despite her frown.

It isn't really a lie, just a true story that doesn't have much truth to it. I _did_ see a Sand Worm once, and I _did_ go to Bikanel. There was a statue too, of some guy -I forget his name- that if you squint and tilt your head, he kinda looks like me.

Rikku's elbow touches mine when she leans back against the palm tree and Yuna's hair flits against my neck with the breeze.

I'll show them one day, I decide, when there's a sand storm.

■□■

**Care to share your thoughts?**


	3. Chapter 3

_**When the Sun Sleeps**_

**Disclaimer: **I don't own FFX-2 (but I do own a copy of the game, so there!)

**Author's Note: **Just a heads up: there will be some some drama in this chapter -gasp- but of course, we all know, that not everything will be light-hearted. And thank you again to all the readers and reviewers! Allow me to be inarticulate when I say: **I heart reviews!**

_**Chapter Three**_

**Yuna**

**7 **

_I remember the first time I ever saw an angel._

She had flowing hair the colour of shadowed honey-gold, and the fairest shade of ivory was painted on her skin. She was small and slight, as if just escaping the grasp of childhood into the golden world of adulthood. I can still see her, arms spread open to beckon flight where wings should have sprouted and lifted her. Her silk gown spread into the sunrise from atop the temple's tower and she almost seeped into this too-beautiful image. Among the stone Aeons, she was alive while they were frozen in time, sealed in granite sculptures. In her eyes was a reflected purpose, one that was sealed luxuriously into mine. I shared her steps, feeling the wind pushing against her and keeping that sensation for myself. I felt the slight tremor of fear that she kept hidden as her wings faltered when she stepped off the ledge. I felt the wind cradle us both in deceptive safety, saw how her arms arched with the power of it.

She had lived it…and I had dreamt it, again. It was the sharpness of the dream that had awoken me to a young night filled with scattered grains of stars.

Rikku is sleeping soundly beside me. I push open the heavy window of the temple's attic and cricket chirps greet me. Uncle Cid is away again and the temple is taking care of us in his absence.

My fingers find a ledge and my foot finds a trustworthy notch in the roof beneath the slippery marble. The path that my fingers and toes travel is anxious but steady with familiarity. When I feel the solid ground beneath me, I run in the direction that looks like North.

Gippal's house is easier to scale than the temple because his window is lower to the ground with vines that loop around each other near the bottom. I like them because they don't scratch my heels as I climb up. My anklet jingles softly as I push my legs over the ledge of his window and hop down.

Rikku can do this with so much ease, I think to myself.

Everything in the room is textured with the shade of night - a dull, aching blue that begs for light. I can distinguish his shape on the bed: crumpled sheets acting as a fortress around him and blond hair smothered against a soft pillow. He still sleeps like a child, sprawled on his stomach in a sea of warm linen and yielding mattress.

I whisper his name quietly but it sounds harsh in the stillness of the night. He doesn't even stir. I bend down on my knees before his bed so that my eyes are level with his face. I call his name a bit louder and poke him firmly on the shoulder.

He mutters something that sounds suspiciously like, "Quit it, Rikku."

I shake his shoulder more firmly and his eyes open lazily.

"I had a dream about an angel."

I don't wait for him to catch up to me.

He reaches for my wrist and rubs his eyes with the back of his other hand, "Little bird?"

I unfurl my fingers and present my palm to him hastily, "What does it mean?"

He sits up unsteadily with his elbows propped up by his sides. Green eyes flit to my palm, and then back to my eyes. There is a seriousness in his face that scares me, and even more so, the fact that he won't touch me –won't travel the soft lines on my palm with his finger.

I lick my lips hesitantly and withdraw my hand, close into myself again without realizing it.

"An angel…falling…" my voice whispers.

Gippal scratches the back of his head, mutters "Yeah…I know…"

His voice is so soft and gentle that it frightens me – he must think me to be something frangible and weak.

"Yuna…" he begins, painfully clear to my ears, " that was your mother."

_I couldn't realize the intricacies of life and death, even at that age. I knew that my mother wasn't with me anymore, and father had long ago left us, but to me, they were just **lost**. They were lost because the word coincides with **missing **and I could not associate it with the meaning of death._

He places two fingers on my brow, each on the tips of the beginning of my eyebrows, "Don't frown so much" he chides.

Gippal shares some of his blanket with me, "What else do you remember?"

There is another dream, one that I have locked away and lost somewhere. It had commanding voices and rough hands shoving and pushing in a crowd. There is confusion and disorder and also, a little girl in a white dress. She stands to the side even though someone is calling her name. Suddenly, there is a boy and with a whisper that sounds like a promise, saying, "I'll take you away from here."

I clutch his soft blanket in a fist, "There was…a boy, I think."

Gippal smiles softly, "Yeah, that was me."

Gippal walks me back to the temple because he insists that I would get lost without him. When we reach the stone steps, he takes my hand and fits it into his with jerky fingers, then quickly lets go. I barely notice, because my eyes are scaling the temple, searching for the top where the angel was in my dreams.

_I didn't understand that my mother had taken her life after my father lost his. She had looked into the rising sun with a dare in her eyes and left her sin behind._

"Don't look so scared," he says, "It's making me nervous."

"I'm sorry."

I fold my hands together in front of me, still feeling the soft warmth where his palm lay against mine.

_Sometimes, I feel like I'm falling with her._

**Rikku**

**8 **

I can hear the distant throbbing of the island drums outside. I sway my body with the beat, trying to multitask as I struggle to twist in the stem of a lily in my hair. The petals are soft and stained with deep maroon and indigo to correspond with the exact shade of my dress. I hold my breath as Yuna ties the strings tightly at the back of the dress then sigh with aggravation when I can't fix the lily to my liking.

"Have some patience," Yuna chides with tinkling laughter.

"But I don't have any," I whine, laughing at the ridiculousness of it all.

Tonight will be perfect, I think. There'll be dancing, and food, and maybe, I can sneak in my first sip of ale when Pops isn't looking.

I twist my head back and forth, trying to catch the view of my hair at the back where Yuna fixes the lily. Yuna leans her hands on my shoulders and smiles into the mirror, "You look so pretty Rikku."

I take her hands from my shoulders and loop them around my neck, "The other girls will be dying of envy. None of the boys will want to dance with them after they see _us_."

My hand grabs hers as we run out of the tent to tackle the beautiful atmosphere of torches, a raging bonfire, and the scents of a thousand foods and desserts commingling in the air. The drums thrum a fast rhythm and already groups of boys and girls are dancing in the sand. Even the young children are having a good time playing with their friends as they run forwards into the rippling waves. Some of the older men gamble with bottles of ale in hand, and the women huddle in rings, discussing insignificant things. Besaid's festivals cater to its young people, and the parents and elderly have already celebrated their share of festivals in their lives to bother with doing anything other than conversing.

I can see Gippal and his friends, a few brave girls clustered between them as they talk and try to move their hands closer without an elder seeing. Yuna and I haven't seen him in a while because of all the training the young boys have to go through –boring things that I don't understand, like, how to hold a sword, how to gather information, how to mend wounds and load bullets into a rifle. If you ask the elders, they'd tell you a storm was brewing. If you ask Pops, he'd say that the Al Bhed have to be extra careful around Bevelle. If you invite Gippal to go for a swim, he'd say that he's "busy playing soldier." We're still young, so we don't know how to connect these ramblings, and don't care too much that we don't, either.

My eyes catch at his darkened eyes. Gippal looks different with the amber light of the fire reflected on him, as if he has grown so much older. Already his hair is as sharp as spikes, falling down into his eyes. A red bandana is tied around his forehead and the tail end lingers near his ear –he's made it to look as if he's a ruffian. The shirt is white against his bronzed skin and purposely loose. He's only fifteen, but he already looks…I swallow. Something pushes from my mind to match a description of him that I read in one of those romance novels that I stole from a vendor. Gippal looks "handsome, in a brutal way". I don't understand what that means exactly, but I'm sure that it could describe him…

The other girls have noticed this in him too, I frown.

Gippal takes a girl's hand in a gesture that is familiar to Yuna and I. It sickens me, the way that he lifts her palm to rest against his chest as he pretends to read her fortune, sneaking his hands from her palm over the inside of her wrist, up her arm to her shoulder. The way that he touches her hair, brings his other hand dangerously close to her knee, makes fierce heat rise in my cheeks. With his friends, he can act this way because they try to grasp hands and press kisses onto girls with the same furtiveness.

Yuna's eyes are focused on the ocean as she smiles absently at the children playing. Sometimes, I can't share things with her because she hasn't opened her eyes to the things that I have…namely boys. Yuna blushes with innocence when a boy looks at her. When I blush, it's because I am suddenly conscious of every movement, every smile that is given to me.

I flick my hair off of my shoulder, pretending that I don't see Gippal, but he has already seen us. And he's smiling -that dangerous slant that is so misleading. But the smile isn't directed at me, but beside me, to Yuna who is waving back gently in response. He's doing it on purpose, I know, but I remove my hand from Yuna's anyway.

"Rikku, look –Gippal's over there. Let's say 'hi'."

"You already did," I try not to snarl.

She grasps my hand again even though I don't hold hers back, and tugs gently then turns to me with worry in her eyes.

"What's wrong?" Her eyes grow frantic and she clasps my other hand with hers, "What is it?"

She must've felt my hands, limp, in hers, "Did I do something? What did I do?"

I smile tightly, and feign enthusiasm even though my words turn sharp, "Nothing. You didn't do _anything_."

Gippal did, I think. But I still feel angry with her for getting what I wanted without even trying.

Yuna makes a startled sound when Gippal saunters over to us and rests a hand on top of her head. Just like that, things are changing and I don't want them to.

"You guys look…", he drifts off searching for an appropriate word after stealing touches from a girl, to face us, friends that have been like sisters for the younger years of his life. He should be ashamed, but he isn't.

"You guys look nice," he finishes and strokes a hand through his hair with a grin, "But I look better."

Yuna shakes his hand off her head and frowns with a smile before catching herself, looking to me for…permission. I hate this feeling, like I'm restricting other people when I'm around them.

Gippal turns to me impatiently, "Who stole your tongue? I need to thank them personally!"

"Shut up. Why don't you go back to your little friend there?"

He turns back to where he was sitting as if forgetting his previous actions then turns back to me with a cock-sure twist to his lips, "Did I offend your sudden 'prim and proper' morale, Rikku? Or are you jea-"

"Don't flatter yourself."

Yuna's voice is weak and uncomfortable, "We shouldn't fight. This is supposed to be a happy occasion…"

Gippal recovers easily with a toothy smile and reaches for Yuna's hand, "You're right Yuna. I say we should enjoy it to its fullest, even if Rikku's being a sourpuss."

He tugs her towards the beach, "Wanna dance?"

"But Rikku…" She looks back to me and starts to come back but he has her wrist. She looks scared and lost, not at all as if she even wants to be with Gippal if it means that I'll be alone and angry.

Gippal meets my eyes with a dare, "Rikku, you won't mind will you?"

"Why should I?"

I only watch until he has her staggering behind him towards the sand, places his hands on her waist and her hands on his shoulders (because she is too shy to do it on her own) and twirls her around so that the pink of her dress twists and spirals around her knees.

I leave in the middle of the song, hoping they don't notice and hoping they do at the same time.

The temple is cold and quiet when I enter it and lean against the statue of Lord Braska. His kind face captured in the stone makes me feel a stillness that is usually fleeting, but pleasant. Yuna's father: I remember him only briefly as brown hair and waiting arms always spread for his daughter. It wouldn't hurt so much that he died, I reason, if he hadn't left his mark on the island. It wouldn't hurt me so much, I admit, to know that he loved Yuna more than Pops ever loved me. It wouldn't be so painful for me to settle into this nook, incomplete and desperate for Gippal's kiss, Pops' acceptance, and memories with Uncle Braska listening for the tinkle of Yuna's anklet as she approached home –because one time she had gotten lost and Braska made sure he could always hear her little steps more distinctly from that moment on.

I wanted to unclasp the anklet and wear it myself as a child, because the anklet meant that Yuna is something precious worth keeping if Uncle Braska always listens for it.

"Hey," a voice breaks and echoes against the wall tentatively, "Cid's little girl."

The drums and chatter invade the solemn space of the temple then muffle when he closes the door.

He laughs a little, disbelieving, "Are you…_crying_?"

I pressed the tears away with the back of my hand before he could see any more.

"I was just teasing y'know. Don't have to be so emotional, geez. You have Yuna all worried."

He doesn't approach me because he is just as awkward and uncomfortable as I am. I can catch his movements through the corner of my eye: a riffling of his hand through his hair and shifty steps with his feet and words choked out in one serving, "Ididn'tmeantomakeyoucry."

Gippal looks at me cautiously when I smooth out my dress and push my hair away from my eyes.

"Stupid," I mutter, "Who wants to cry over you?"

He smiles and I smile back.

**Gippal**

**9 **

I don't understand girls.

You look at them the wrong way and they cry; you keep your mouth shut and they get mad; you smile at one and frown at the other and this is what happens.

Yuna is subdued, even her breathing is quieter than usual. Rikku keeps fidgeting and frowning like an insect bit her in an unmentionable area.

The water's resistance makes my muscles burn as I paddle frustratingly slowly, urging the small boat forward to the middle of the pond. With a loud sigh, I stop rowing and drop my hands at my sides. The boat jerks a little, Rikku squawks and Yuna tries not to giggle. For a split second, everything is back to normal, but something remembered dawns on the two girls and the tension divides us again. If I had to venture a guess, it probably had to do with the festival two days ago, but I'm not stupid enough to ask. I know better than that.

I prop my elbows up on my upraised knees and assess them with some amount of amusement and curiosity.

Rikku crinkles the material of her skirt in two tight fists and pouts as she frowns, sometimes sneaking glances at Yuna who is stretched on her back behind her; she is careful not to invade any part of Rikku's personal space. Yuna brushes her fingers across the surface of the water tenderly, creating her own pattern on the surface and focuses her attention entirely on this frivolous action. There is a white ribbon tied securely (bound many times) to her wrist, and the tail end of it skims along the water with her fingers. It breaks the reflection of the moon in the water, making it waver tremulously.

Rikku has one too (a ribbon) –except it's red. I shake my head, _must be some girl thing_, I reason.

I nudge Rikku's leg with my toes.

"_What?_" she hisses quietly, clearly not in the mood to put up with me.

I try not to frown –the last thing I want her to think is that she can make me _react_ to anything she says–and lean back on my elbows. The rough wood bites into my skin uncomfortably. I peer up at the sky, eyes swiftly returning to hers to see if she has followed my gaze, and then smile to see that she has.

"Looks like it's gonna rain" I say with ease, trying to hide my smirk.

She frowns savagely at the sky and turns to look at me again, "Are you stupid! The sky is cle-"

I dip my hands over the side of the boat and slap some water into her face. My laugh is harsh in the quiet and her growl awakens a flock of birds.

"Hey!" Yuna's voice reaches my ears.

Water trickles down her face and neck.

I just barely glimpse the conspiratorial grin that the two girls share before I taste pond water.

Somehow the boat finds its way back to the sand bank where we started, between laughter and complaints of wet hair.

I stagger out of the boat first, grimacing at the uncomfortable feeling of wet clothes pulling against me and the sudden weight of the soggy material.

I wring out the water from my shirt, "You guys splashed me way more than I splashed you. I practically absorbed the _whole_ pond!"

Exaggeration is a tool that I like to use often.

Rikku snickers, "It probably did you good. That was most likely the only bath you've had in months."

I make a face at her and she makes one back; Yuna laughs.

Everything's back to normal now, a voice at the back of my head reassures.

It figures, I muse with a wry grin on my face, the only way to get the girls back to normal is to pit them against me!

Night is falling swiftly and our eyes are fighting a losing battle to stay open.

Rikku snores softly on her side though her back is pressed warmly against me. Yuna curls into herself in her sleep, turned towards me, offering her wrist as if she is reaching forward for Rikku -like she has often done before.

Something hard is resting against my ear. I sigh irritably –a bead in Rikku's hair. _Stupid_, I think. She can't sleep with braids in her hair so she usually takes out all of her clips and baubles and wears her hair out, but she must've forgot one. I slide the bead off and unravel the soft blond hair from its braid.

Beside me, the flicker of iridescent white catches my eye. Yuna's ribbon shifts with her breathing, and has nearly come loose from our play. I untie it carefully, trying not to touch her –she has always been a light sleeper. The ribbon is quite long; I wrap it around my arm in boredom and pretend that it is a bandage covering a gruesome gash…this thought forms a fantasy of myself as a soldier or knight or _whatever_ –just someone with a sword, or really, anything sharp like a–

I squint my eyes in the dark. There is a heart drawn on Yuna's wrist –the ribbon was covering it. A _heart_…sure, its roughly drawn and really just the outline of one and thick (like a finger traced it).

It's also brown, like the colour of clay.

Sometimes we would take a clump of clay and mix in some water and trace fake tattoos onto each other to pretend that we were savages –well, Rikku said that I didn't have to pretend because I was close enough to the real thing, then I would happen to mush some of our mixture into her hair.

None of this matters though, because there is something _in_ the heart…a '**T**'.

_A 'T' for what…?_

An image of blue eyes and blond hair touches my memory.

_Tidus_.

She has another boy's mark on her, even if she put it on willingly. It doesn't take two heartbeats for me to realize that I don't like this; she's _my_ friend and _my _pretend-sister. I promised myself a long time ago that I would only share her with Rikku.

Rikku turns in her sleep and flings an arm across my stomach. Her red ribbon is still tied, but I already know that there is a '**G**' in her heart.

I hold my hand in front of me and touch the inside of my wrist.

_I don't have a heart_, I think.

■□■

Just a sidenote: If it is seems too far-fetched for Yuna not to have recognized her mother's death, or even remembered it, let me just say that some children that have undergone trauma (of any kind) have been known to repress the traumatic event entirely. It has happened in some cases, where the child has grown to an adult, and still does not recall the event at all. Because of Yuna's character, I thought that it would be possible for her to repress the memory, and believe it to be more of a dream than anything else, just because she was so young, and still ignorant of the "darker" side of the world.


	4. Chapter 4

_**When the Sun Sleeps**_

**Disclaimer:** Despite what you may think, I don't own FFX-2 or any aspect of the game at all. I own these words and nothing else!

**Author's Note: **Slight confusion has forced me to be less subtle, but that's okay :) This is a love/friendship triangle and Tidus would make it a square, and no one likes a _square_! (Bad pun). What I meant to say, was, Tidus drifts around the triangle because, even though I believe that Gippal/Yuna will reign over Tidus/Yuna in this fic, he cannot be discarded. He will be a part of her life in subtlety, and right now, he acts as more of an after-thought. I don't want anything I write to be glaringly obvious, so you have to look for intonations and suggestions, because I'm tricky that way ;) Thank you to the reviewers and readers alike. Hope you guys stick with me to the end!

_**Chapter Four**_

**Yuna**

**10 **

"Come on", she whispers urgently.

Her hand slips to her skirt, pulling and tugging at it uncomfortably as she runs stealthily across the crooked stones of the low wall. My steps follow closely behind hers with a grace that I have yet to master.

Rikku growls impatiently and bunches her skirt together and lifts it above her knees to tie it clumsily with a sash.

"Rikku!"

My startled gasp does not faze her as she smiles back mischievously to me. She shrugs slightly, "We've got to give the boys _something_ to look at", she states matter-of-factly. Her long hair swishes wildly back and forth as she shakes her head at me, imitating the priestesses with her stance and a mock tone, "Really, Yuna. You must get over this fear of being ravished, though I think that it's just wistful dreaming on your part."

My cheeks flush red and Rikku runs ahead, giggling excitedly as I chase her. Her reckless attitude washes over me in the exhilaration of it all and I untie my heavy cloak, tossing it behind me, much farther from where Rikku has dropped hers –an act of impatience.

The setting sun is chasing at our heels when we reach the tangle of forest. Both of us are panting for breath with flushed skin and peaked anticipation.

We can hear the sounds of the young soldiers-in-training and the crackling of a fire as they laugh and joke about insignificant things. I know that Gippal will be here; Rikku pretends she doesn't know.

Rikku catches herself before I do, and smoothes out her new red dress that she "bought" secretly when Uncle Cid was called to a meeting. She looks messy, but dangerous in an exotic way at the same time. I can't help but think that the temple priests would never approve of such attire.

She ties the sash tighter so that the dress touches her skin more firmly. With careful hands, she unties the ribbon fastened about her hair so that it falls like golden silk around her shoulders, and beams a victorious smile at me.

She knows exactly what she is doing, I think. She is dangerous in her own way and she knows that boys like that in her.

I feel awkward and shy behind her, like a little girl looking up at her big sister. I'm still wearing the white filmy gown of a temple adept, nothing close to how beautiful Rikku's is -but she has promised that I can borrow her pilfered dress for the next festival. But I could never look as she does at this moment with only the faintest pastel shade of orange, yellow and red reflected on her skin from between the lacy pattern of sheltering leaves.

Rikku stands on the tips of her toes, trying to see over a vine, then flashes a smile, whispering "Let's go."

There was no time to think as she grabbed my hand and pulled us both into the open. The firelight glows on our skin and the boys stop their jeering and laughing –all eyes are on us.

"Well, well, well…look at what we have here," a young man with shaggy black hair appraises Rikku with his eyes and then drifts to me with impatience.

Rikku leaves my side and brings the boy -who looks to be at least a year older than us- to face her by pulling at his arm. She presses against him slightly and whispers something in his ear; the other boys hoot and cry encouragements. I know Rikku well enough to know that she has insulted him, but the slow smile that sneaks from his lips is meant to fool the others and save embarrassment.

Rikku leaves me then to go sit between two eager boys. Her actions speak brazenly for her, but her look is innocent. I'm sure she likes that contradiction.

The heat of the fire feels uncomfortable on my skin, and the air is too sticky with sweat and yesterday's rain.

I feel vulnerable.

The gauzy, white shawl that I wore around my shoulders slips off with a sudden breeze and I feel skittish and nervous again.

Warm hands touch my shoulders, and the feeling of the sash welcomes me again. I remember soft, blue eyes and equally soft, blond hair. The boy smiles at me shyly and removes his hands just as quickly as he had laid them on me, as if catching himself. Tidus, I think. I remember him distinctly because I had seen him with Gippal before and he had asked me to dance when I was fourteen. I can feel the burning of rose trace across my cheeks and I turn away, but not before he can see.

I meet Rikku's eyes suddenly when I turn, and she waggles her eyebrows suggestively, making me blush harder.

I saw her gaze turn hard as she stared somewhere behind me –she is no longer listening to the two boys sitting on either side of her, trying to press their knees closer to her or move their hands to brush against hers without being too obvious.

Rough hands drift through my hair absently in a familiar gesture –Gippal ruffling my hair. The boy named Tidus steps back from me as if I am untouchable because of Gippal's contact.

"What's going on here?" his voice is authoritative, a tone that I haven't heard from him before. The boys stop their chatter.

Rikku is the only one brave enough to saunter up to him like a predator preying on its choice target.

"We were just having fun, Gippal. Since when are you in charge of everyone?" she asks sarcastically, coaxing his jealousy.

"Since your father appointed me."

The shifting of the boys dragging their feet as they return to their tents is the only sound that fills the tense silence. Rikku is silent and contemplative. The look on her face tells me that a distant fear has been pushed forward in front of her.

It is only now that she notices his uniform, worn loosely to attract less heat but quite purposeful and deliberate to display his status.

"That means…you're leaving, to fight the war?"

I find a loose thread on my dress and busy my hands with it, trying to drain out the sound of sadness in Rikku's voice.

"I'll be leaving in two months", he says," I might not be back for years."

I don't like Gippal's new voice, so much like a man that I cannot recognize the boy that I knew.

Rikku could never handle her own tears…she had to distract herself, separate herself from the real world to keep her confidence, her strength. I started to walk away, and leant on the back of a tree with a racing pulse and nervous breaths, far away, knowing that this moment was for them to share alone.

I sunk down to my knees, breathing deeply to calm myself.

_The sufferance of an adept is meant to be tolerated and ignored. Pain should be withheld to private times. Patience is a virtue. Serenity is a virtue._ I dug my nails into the earth, reciting the vows that I swore as an apprentice in the temple. No matter how hard I tried, I could not drown out the other sounds.

I knew when she grasped his shirt with desperate fingers and tilted up to gain leverage. I could tell that when she kissed him, and he kissed her back, that it was fiery and anxious because of their commingled fear of losing each other. My eyes were closed, but I could hear the tremor in her breath and the sound of clothing, as she tore from his embrace, too overcome with emotion and too proud to let him see her cry.

_Anguish stems from selfishness. Devotion stems from selflessness. Showing pain is…_

She ran past me and didn't wait for me to catch up to her.

…_a sin._

I didn't know if the tears that slipped through my lashes were for her unyielding ones, or for myself. I walked home by myself with tears trickling down my face in quivering paths, thinking that I had failed myself again.

**Rikku**

**11 **

For the stretch of days that followed, I refused to leave the house, much to Pop's disapproval. I heard Yuna's carefully thought out excuses to save me from Pop's tyranny through the door of my room –she was the only one that I would allow inside.

Yuna's fingertips brushed against my forehead as she brushed my tear stained hair to the side. With gentle hands, she twined the strands together and combed her fingers through my hair in a sisterly fashion. It was the rare times such as these that Yuna seemed to be the older one rather than myself.

"Please don't cry anymore, Rikku. You'll make yourself sick."

I thought of the coolness of my skin and the burning feeling that caused me to shiver sometimes. How is it possible to be so overcome with grief? I wondered absently.

She put my hand in hers, reassuringly. "Gippal won't be gone for too long. You know him, he'll be complaining about the stuffy air of Bevelle and the boring training that he'll have to endure too much to ever stay there for any longer than is needed."

Yuna doesn't like when I am silent because so many of her own doubts have a chance to speak.

My mouth is set in a straight line but my mind is restless.

This is just like one of our arguments, I think. Gippal doesn't like to relent because he is so stubborn, but this is an argument that I refuse to lose to him. He has a choice. He can't really want to leave me _-us._

"Don't worry so much about me Yunie. I'm fine now" I smile to reassure her.

Something about Yuna is so fragile, and delicate that both Gippal and I refuse to let her feel someone else's sadness. This is why we keep our angst to private times where she cannot share our guilt, anger or depression. Something about Yuna makes you want to tip-toe around her and make sure that she doesn't shatter, because we both know that she is too gentle for this type of world.

That is why I find an ounce of confidence to smile bravely. That is why I am able to ignore the stinging pain in my heart as I see her return a hesitant smile.

She ducks her head, suddenly shy.

"Rikku…" she continues on timidly like a child that has been scolded," what…what would you give to keep Gippal here?"

"_Anything_"

My response is swift and so truthful that it hurts me to say it. Some wisdom flashes in her eyes.

_I never did realize that Yuna played the same game that I did with her. I was too overwhelmed with my own sorrow that I did not notice the redness of her eyes when she awoke from a restless sleep, or the way that her countenance held a more thoughtful, and sometimes despondent expression._

My days were lost and my nights extended for far too long. In the darkness of my room, I thought to myself with bitterness, _this must be the fever of first love, and I cannot escape it alone_.

**Gippal**

**12 **

I figured out way too late that two weeks goes by so much faster than I could have wanted. The end of this month is already nearing.

Things that I would have never taken notice of before became seared into my memory. Things like the hot sand on the soles of my feet, sparring with Tidus, Yuna's smile and…_Rikku_.

Already, she has become someone that I must avoid. Why can't she understand? People change, times change, situations change. I shouldn't feel guilty; I **won't** feel guilty because of her. She's just Rikku after all, just Cid's girl, just that flurry of blond hair and elbows, bandaged knees and sand in her shoes. Just that girl that always walks by the soldier's tents, pretending not to look for me, scowling then smiling when she does find me (because irritation comes before kindness, and we both know it).

"Don't you think that's sharp enough?"

I can hear Tidus' tired steps approaching, and I stop sharpening the blade abruptly –I've been caught.

"What's it to you?"

So what if I'm a bit snippy…I'm allowed to be. I'm going to _war_ for Spira's sake! The impact hits me suddenly. Damn Cid. All he did was clap my shoulder with his meaty palm and half-slurred my promotion. "I'm puttin' you in charge. Don't screw up", he said. Now I get to wear a cool uniform and order people around, but it doesn't feel as good as it should 'cause I'm scared as hell. Can't tell anyone though, no because they'll know, then they'll begin to doubt, and then it's the beginning of the end. It's a vicious cycle, I know. Now I have to show all the guys (all my _friends_) how to hold a dagger properly, teach them where to slash so that you can get the enemy down easily without too much of a hassle…Suddenly, we are all murderers without letting blood.

"Hey", he shakes my arm a bit.

He has a knowing look in his eyes, as if he is suddenly older than 17. "Don't think about it too much, otherwise, it'll just make it harder, you know?"

Tidus leaves and I sigh.

There is a blue heap of cloth next to the training clothes that I have discarded in place for some more comfortable ones. Yuna's cloak. I couldn't find Rikku's…she probably dumped it somewhere carelessly…it wouldn't surprise me too much if she did.

I bunch the cloak up in my hands and tuck it under my arm. I am so weary that I drag my feet as I walk to the temple. Stupid old man Cid, I think, running me ragged with all his irritating training.

The steps of the temple are cool against my feet. I lean against the side of the doorway and peer inside, feeling out of place and ignorant as I usually do when I'm within its general vicinity. I don't know how Yuna can stand it.

I can't bear it, but I have to go in. All of the old men with hunched backs stare at me as I walk to the middle of the circular vestibule.

"Yuna!"

My voice carries, and the old men shake their heads at me. I apologize even though I don't mean it.

I see her with a playful frown on her face as she emerges from behind a heavy door– I've embarrassed her again, but it only makes me smirk. She looks around her nervously then beckons me forward with a hasty wave. The priests are really fussy about male visitors to their young adepts.

"What are you doing?"

"Here", I push the cloak into her arms.

"Oh."

Her cheeks flush in remembrance of that night not too many days ago. I can kind of see what Tidus keeps saying about her is true. She is pretty in her own way, modest and humble beauty that you notice when she smiles or laughs.

I lean my weight on my arm against the wall and she chides me semi-jokingly after I placed my hand on a painted tapestry depicting some sort of spirit or something.

I slump lazily behind a statue of a Fayth, and the candlelight glows against the side of my face as the incipient shadows gather around the other half of my body. Yuna sits down beside me with more grace than I have and folds her hands in her lap. The light embraces her completely.

"Gippal…are you really leaving?"

I stare at my boots. They are caked with mud and gravel.

"Yeah."

She is so quiet, even as she whispers, "I see".

I lean my head against hers.

"Don't worry Little Bird."

My statement feels as if it has been cut short. I don't know what else to say. I can't even find some sort of reassurance other than that to tie to my words. I can't promise not to get hurt, or come back alive. Instead of offering false promises, my hand finds her hair in an absent gesture that has grown with me. I feel like I'm losing them –her and Rikku.

I want to remember the textures and the rhythms of the everyday routine. She doesn't notice that my fingers slip through her strands of golden brown with more care as I try to keep this small feeling for myself. Something feels different, like a sadness that seeps into my bones. I don't want to lose this either.

My fingers brush against the nape of her neck and I hope that she doesn't jerk away or freeze up like she used to whenever I touched her like I touch Rikku –careless and rough from years of playing and rough-housing.

I don't want her to be nervous or scared because there is no time for those feelings.

"Gippal…"

I kiss her lightly on the forehead and move away from her. Without knowing it, my actions speak as a farewell and I can't stand it.

Her eyes find mine, holding me in place.

"Don't leave without saying goodbye to Rikku. You hurt her, and she loves you."

She crosses her arms over her upraised knees and I know that she had just given me a light order, something for me to carry around while time passes. But Yuna looks so young at that moment; so much like the little girl that I would pretend was my sister. I'm scared of disappointing her.

"Of course, _Lady Yuna_."

I smile at her, after giving her the title that she hesitates from after her father's death. There is nothing but fondness and humor in my voice. I have to lighten the serious situation because serious talks make me nervous.

Her words should have kept me in place: _You hurt her, and she loves you_. I scoff silently, _what is love anyway? _

■□■

**Ending note: **-shakes head- Okay, before I get flames, I have to say that I didn't spring upon the 'war' thing. I gave hints in the second and third chapter (look for them carefully), and you should know by now, that I like to write in little underlying conflicts that slap you in the face later on. Did it hurt? lol, please review if you can.


	5. Chapter 5

_**When the Sun Sleeps**_

**Disclaimer: **I don't own FFX-2.

**Author's Note: **Personally, I don't think that the ages of the characters matters too much. For the sake of curiousity, let's say Yuna and Rikku are the same age (16) and Gippal is a year older than both of them. If you'd rather have it another way, you are free to read it with your chosen view of the characters (as it will not conflict with the plot). And **remember**, Gippal's two months aren't over yet. You most certainly will be able to tell when they are, I won't leave you hanging.

This fic is nearing its end, and school is disrupting my updates, but I hope it doesn't go unappreciated. Thank you to all who have cared to read, and to those who have reviewed. Hope to hear from you all again.

_**Chapter Five**_

**Yuna**

**13 **

"There you go," I smile as I wrap the bandage around the little boy's finger. He gets up from my lap and scampers off in the direction of his friends running around near the beach.

Dusk is settling into the sky like blue and purple dust. The shadows of the temple's archway engulf me in shades of indigo -Besaid is not so deep in it's autumn season for the sun to die an early death during the day, but the wind is hinting at a distant chill. I sigh softly and wiggle my toes against the hard marble steps. A few fireflies rise sullenly from the foliage, but their company does nothing for me -I am alone again, trapped between my duties as an adept and healer, and spending time with Rikku (though, she has brushed aside my presence to wander the island alone with her head bowed and her feet dragging). And Gippal is unreachable in his dedication to the squadron.

I lean back on the stone pillar. It seems as if they have both forgotten about me.

"Why so glum?"

My eyes drift to the figure and I don't realize that I am beaming until he comments with a laugh that I should be like this more often. I lean forward as much as I can with my elbows resting on the step above me and blush, "It would seem that you have yet another injury that needs care, today?"

Tidus smirks with a slant that rises to his cheeks and nods vehemently, "I've been rather clumsy, you see. Shuriken training is best left to those who know how to use it constructively", he rubs the back of his neck and mutters, "without hurting oneself in the process." He sits down one step below me and sprawls lazily on his side with an elbow propped up to support him. I reach beside me and get the gauze and balm ready, placing them in my lap. Tidus has arrived many times over the last few weeks under the pretense of harboring wounds stretching in the degree of emergency to coincide with his outlandish stories. I am sure that he has another affliction entirely, which demands something other than healing (though I would never voice it aloud!). It is an effort to keep from giggling foolishly at my assumption, though I must remain serious and efficient before the temple priests begin to suspect their adept of 'misconduct'.

I begin unwrapping the gauze from it's roll, "Now, where is this wound that you speak of?"

He halts me with a warm hand atop my own and smiles -that unsure, but confident twist of his lips that makes me want to turn away before I do something foolish. "Why don't we talk about something less...morbid." Tidus laughs a little bit, boyish and hearty. We both know that he is not wounded.

He doesn't let go of my hand, but brings it to rest with his between us as he lays back down, searching the skies. "The days are getting shorter", he says, giving a frown to the moon hovering near the sun somewhere in the distant planes of space and sky. A smile darts onto his face just as soon as he happens upon a thought, "But that means less training, so it is forgiveable."

Tidus turns to me and touches me with his eyes; his breath warms my stomach because of how he is seated and I squirm a little bit to ease away the ticklish feeling. He rests his hand on the inside of my arm and shakes away the shaggy hair that flickers at the sides of his neck. "I suppose I will have to sustain more injuries in order to uh..." he is about to say something else, maybe something dangerous and romantic, so he continues unsteadily," to be in your presence."

"I was beginning to suspect your motives for coming", I quirk my lips into a teasing smile, "You should be more careful as a soldier. How will you fare on your own?"

A torrid breeze tangles into my hair, and I gasp -it is his hand in my hair, knuckles grazing the curve of my ear. "How will I fare without _you_?" he asks, the words drifting to nothing against my cheek and then the pale freckle near the edge of my lips. I flinch, surprised, but he brings my forehead to his, easing both of us into a soft smile. What does this mean? I'm scared and he's perfect and I'm closing my eyes...

My words are half-thought and nearly stuttered in their escape against his touch: "I think..." _I want to run away._

"I think you should get back to training."

The voice isn't mine, and that's what scares us the most -jars us and makes me claw for breath. I don't want to look, I don't want to see him. My heart snaps into a staccato, but my breaths are maintained. I find his shadow on the sand and focus on that. Tidus shifts beside me, and from the corner of my eye, I can see that his stance is unsure and stubborn. If I breath in deeply, his hand would be able to brush against my side.

"That was an order", the shadow shifts, indicates a shuffling foot, and Tidus gets up slowly and leaves noisily, disobeying in any small way that he can.

The boots climb up the steps and settle beside mine. "And how is it that a young adept can treat not only wounds and abbrasions, but _all _manner of ailments for a soldier?" the gentle voice teases, husky with something hidden behind the tone.

A finger tilts my chin up and I can see viridian, dark shadows chasing away green. Gippal smiles like he wants to take something from me. I turn my head away from him and begin packing the supplies into a small pouch. 'Steady your hands', a voice reprimands, 'and don't falter.'

"What are you doing here?" I ask, voice disappearing on me until I clear my throat. I am trembling -the air has gotten colder- but my cheeks are flushed and heated.

Gippal twists sideways and lays his head on my lap, tries at a disarming smile that betrays his mock emotion when he says, "I am wounded, very deeply. Heal me, Lady Yuna." He has already sensed my anger and is attacking it with his humour. It won't work.

"Anyone can see that you are uninjured."

His brows furrow in the slightest of movements, "As was Tidus. But it seems that you hold preference over your patients. You would rather have him over me and _that_ is cause enough for injury."

I purse my lips and he catches the discomfort in my look, but he leaps upon it instead of retreating. He reaches behind his head for my hand and matches his palm to mine, measuring the size of my hand in his. I swallow the tremble in my voice, "You have a jealous heart, Gippal."

Gippal schools his face into a pained look. "I have a broken heart," he says, and brings my palm to his throat, slides it down under his shirt for me to feel the slow, steady beat. My pulse is racing and he knows it, so he presses my palm more firmly to him. "What is the cure?" he asks in a whisper that escapes between a venturesome smirk.

I roughly pull my hand away from his, scandalized and angered by his brazenness -he loves to taunt me in these small games of words and touch. They don't mean anything to him, but he wants them to mean something to me.

"I suggest that you stop playing selfishly with the hearts of others so that your own may go unmarred."

He sits up suddenly, surprised. I gather my things in my arms and drift down the steps, ignoring his voice calling my name. No, I think, you cannot steal moments from me like a gold coin or gleaming jewel. As a friend, I should be worth more than that.

**Rikku**

**14 **

A pattern of orange falls onto the dusty wooden boards of the floor. I turn my back to the burning sun. I should really close the window, but I don't care if some sand drifts in to sprinkle across the floor with a vagrant breeze. I haven't been caught yet, and that knowledge is making me more bold.

My eyes scan the room slowly, taking in the cluttered surfaces, unmade bed and dirty clothes littering the ground. My secret visits have allowed me to see the slow process, the gradual barrenness of personal possessions and necessities as he starts to pack away these items in satchels and leather pouches. He takes small, insignificant things that are lightweight, and puts the heavier things such as weapons and extra armor, in a large leather case with sturdy straps.

I smile to myself grimly, walking with feet that know how to drift across the floor without making too much noise. I drag my fingers across his desk possessively, feeling the roughness of the wood where Gippal has nicked it with impatience. In the corner, he has scratched in some notches, which he prides himself with. He would tease me when we were younger that the notches represented how many girls he has kissed. Now, I don't doubt him.

I laugh quietly –there is another notch added, separate from the others. _That would be me…_I smirk.

Next to the notch is a roughly engraved heart, which I added two years ago just to annoy him. My attention wanders elsewhere. I find what I'm looking for and pocket it quickly.

Underneath his bed is the shield and wooden sword that he practiced with when he was younger. They are too big and too precious to take away from him.

Behind the bedpost is a dagger that he has decided to hide from me. I smile –he is aware of my game and has decided to play. I take the dagger and press the blade flat against my thigh and latch it in place with a leather buckle.

My feet travel back to the desk. His drawer is open purposely to draw me in. Inside, are standard bullets provided for the guns given to the soldiers just recently. I take ten of them and leave the remaining four because I feel like it. Guilt had set in from previous trips like these because he would arrive at the training grounds unprepared, and Pops could never handle a "careless attitude" from a soldier, much less a commander.

I take one more bullet out of bitterness and put it in my vest pocket. If Gippal is unprepared, he'll get demoted, maybe even refused from his position if Pops gets fed up with him. I'm desperate to make him stay, even if it means that I have to steal his military weapons and stock…certainly, it should slow him down a bit.

"A thief stealing from a thief?"

His voice is warm against my neck.

I've been caught, but I don't mind.

I can feel him lean forward and place a hand on the desk in front of me; his palm covers the heart completely.

"I've been wondering where all my weapons have gone lately," his voice suddenly got stern, "You have to stop this Rikku. This isn't a game I want to play with you, war is serious you know, and Cid is serious about it. Your little tricks have landed me in hot water."

He pulls away suddenly and folds his arms across his chest. I turn to him, returning his cool gaze. His shirt was loosely tied, revealing tanned skin beneath. His pants were folded up to his knees –probably because he's been loading cargo into the merchant ships by the beach–though the colour has already started to fade and change from the sea salt.

He offers his palm to me and motions for me to give him the things that I pocketed. I shake my head stubbornly and step away, fingers searching for the window ledge. He has already sensed my eagerness. I leap out of the window in a flash and laugh carelessly as he chases me.

"This isn't a game, Rikku," he warns from somewhere behind me. He hasn't fooled me; I can feel the smile in his voice. _That is exactly what this is_, I think absently.

In this moment, there is only wind, grass, laughter and sun. Instinct kicks in –leap, bound, swerve.

Eventually he catches up to me, but by then he is laughing with me, even as he pushes me down and pins me to the ground on my stomach with roughness that he shares while sparring with Tidus. My face is buried in the grass, but I don't mind too much.

I giggle softly, accustomed to his aggressiveness, but dirt doesn't taste so great right now, so I stop. I feel the heavy weight of him as he sits on my back and precious oxygen is knocked out of me even though he isn't being _too_ rough.

He hums happily, "_Complete _submission…I could get used to this!"

I kick and squirm, "_eteud!_" (Idiot!)

One hand captures my wrists, and the other…

"Ah! _Banjand! Mad ku!_" (Pervert! Let go!)

His fingers drift slowly down my thigh then halt at the leather strap.

"Just taking what's mine," he laughs, removing the blade with deft hands. He loosens his grip momentarily and I manage to roll away, bringing my legs to tangle with his ankles in a smooth maneuver. He counters quickly by rolling to his side and grabbing onto my ankles in return.

He smiles a dangerous smile, "Using my own moves against me? You're gonna have to do better than that Cid's little girl."

"Why can't you just _stay_?" I blurt out, getting frustrated.

His mood melts and drops to freezing in a split second. "Why can't you just let it go? It is what it is, Rikku. I can't change it."

I kick roughly and he lets go, not completely surprised at my actions.

I dust myself off impatiently and rest my knuckles on my hips.

"If you're not staying, then I'm going with you."

Gippal doesn't balk or smirk as I had expected him to. I've misjudged him again without realizing it, and he has read me so clearly that I find myself wondering about how much he has come up with on his own.

He gets up slowly, eyeing me with something akin to an authoritative, calculating stare. Gippal walks circles around me, like a predator. _Rikku, you're _just_ a girl, _I imagine him saying in a practical voice that resonates finality. In his head, he's thinking that I'm too soft for this kind of thing, unprepared, young, and foolish. _I am **so** tired of him underestimating me._

"I…"

My hand strikes forward, but doesn't catch him off guard.

"Am **_not_**"

His wrist renders my right hand immobile. I aim a fist for his face. He looks mildly amused as he catches my hand patiently.

"Just" I pant heavily as my left leg sweeps forward. He blocks the kick with his own leg.

"…a" I twist my body sideways, jumping slightly to gain momentum and guide my foot forcefully to his shoulder, but he has already let go of my arms, and blocks it with his forearms.

"…**_girl!_**"

I backfliip behind me to put some distance between us. My hands reach behind me for the shuriken concealed within the small pouch near the small of my back. He smiles tightly in response and readies himself into a stance that I am familiar with.

I brandish the weapons and flick them forward with my wrists, releasing them into the air. Gippal is not surprised at all –he deflects them easily with swift movements of his blade.

"I can fight too. The battlefields aren't only for men" I retaliate, removing my own weapon of choice.

"Even so, it is no place for you."

I quirk an eyebrow, "Why's that?"

His blade is soaring towards me, but I dodge it easily. My heart is racing with excitement that has arrived more frequently when I am around him. He disappears from view momentarily, and I just barely miss the swipe of his arm –the blade was just a decoy. _He's getting serious now_, I think to myself.

He punches fast, but I catch his fist each time. Sweat is beading on my forehead and matting my hair down. I can't predict his actions because he is too swift.

His foot hits me hard in the shin, but I know that he's holding back. I crash onto the hard, pebbled dirt and stifle a yelp of pain. I am on my stomach again, aching as my muscles have come to a complete stop after the intense strain of blocking his hits just seconds ago.

Gippal keeps me down with a firm booted foot on my back. I groan as his weight shifts to concentrate on the foot that is holding me down. He breathes calmly as if we weren't in deep combat just moments ago.

He bends forward over me.

" '_Why?_' Rikku?" His voice is husky from our sparring, "Because you are too weak."

He doesn't say it jokingly like he used to so many other times, and he doesn't remove his hold on me for the longest time. His actions will me to accept his statement as the truth.

He finally moves his heavy foot and starts to walk away.

I flip over and address my attention to the purple-ish bruise swelling on my shin.

_This is how we settle arguments with each other_, I think. _We hurt each other, trying to get even, always trying to settle a score that has so much more meaning than what we say it is. Our purposes carry ulterior motives that we had much rather not explain to each other._

Something inside of me snaps -like a silk cord attached to my heart -and a hollow feeling that seems like desperation (but can't be because it feels _so much worse_) settles around me like a ghostly veil. 'This is Realization', a voice taunts. 'He doesn't need you, he doesn't want you...you're simply, not **_enough_**.'

I take a shuddering breath.

_He shouldn't be allowed to walk away and leave me like this. It shouldn't be so...**easy**._

I find his blade beside me and flick it with my wrist, aiming for him –I don't care where it hits. I want to see a thin trickle of blood trace across his skin, and then we'll be even. But the blade doesn't strike because he deflects it. He plays my own game far too well.

He turns his back to me and keeps walking.

"Go home Rikku" he says.

_And now it's 'game over'._

**Gippal**

**15 **

I flit my gaze to the side where she strides forcefully, swishing the tail end of her skirts around her ankles as she walks. She faces forward, shoulders stiff and pronouncing formality. There is a river between us, traveling the distance at a much faster rate than we are. I almost smirk –she won't even look at me. Time has calmed her somewhat, and she always has had a soul that forgives despite itself. I haven't lost her yet.

"Are you _still_ mad at me?" I have to yell across because of the space between us. She doesn't answer.

Yuna rarely gets mad, but when she does…

I have to make long strides to match her speed.

When I threw a pebble at her window, I knew that she would bite her lip softly, untangle herself from her sheets quietly without waking Rikku, then climb down the stone pillar of the temple with enough skill for me to secretly feel proud of as a thief. Yuna wouldn't even look at me as she started to walk forward with her hands crossed at her chest –she was the leader this time and it was my turn to follow.

"C'mon! Talk to me" I pleaded, trying to coax a response. It always worked with Rikku but I had no such experience with Yuna. Silence.

I smiled to myself in realization; Yuna chose the path, but I know it as my own.

When she broke off into a run suddenly, I could only smirk, knowing that I would catch her. She practically ran into my arms; the river separates suddenly, and where there were two parallel sides, there is only one.

She yelped when I caught her and I laughed. I can make a pretty impressive jail with my arms; the lace from her nightgown brushes against my chest. Yuna extricates herself from me in a flustered hurry with a glare in her eyes.

"Why do you always have to involve yourself?" She leans against a tree, arms crossed.

"Whaddaya mean?"

There is a pout in her voice, "You _know_."

She fidgets uncomfortably, letting loose her guard; "…with _Tidus_" she finishes.

"What about him?"

She slumps to the ground and leans her head back with a gentle sigh that whispers through parted lips. Her fingers reach to her side, feeling the ridges of the bark. I pluck a fruit from the tree nearest me and shift aimlessly on my feet.

"Why won't you let me have what you have?"

Yuna fans her palm across the bark and lets it drift down to her side before her eyes reach mine. I sit down in front of her so that the soles of my feet could touch hers if she spread them in front of her.

"What do _I _have?" The words form a bitter taste in my mouth.

Her eyes soften and she tucks her knees close to her chest, "Love. You love Rikku" she hides her face when she lays the side of her cheek on her knees. "Why won't you let me love Tidus?"

I rub the soft fruit against my shirt, recognizing it to be a peach. She knows that my silence means that I won't admit to any truth that she might have happened upon. Her brown hair cascades over her elbows and flutters to her chest as she rises into a proper sitting position to look at me expectantly.

"Who said I love Rikku?"

Evasion is a technique that I have mastered.

A frown falls like a veil over her face. She doesn't want to play games with me, but she has enough patience to wait for another chance.

I offer her the fruit, which she leans over to grab with a half-smile that says 'thank-you' even if she doesn't voice it. She has surrendered to my avoidance and given up on the topic momentarily.

The strap of her gown trembles off of her shoulder. Her skin looks sleek and smooth like soft marble. She straightens out her legs and her toes touch my shins. The contact almost acts as a conciliatory touch; she is more displeased than angry now. She bites into the peach timidly and searches the sky like she always does.

Her cheeks are flushed slightly from the humidity –I didn't give her time to get a cloak or something before she climbed through the window for the purpose of modesty. Yuna has always hidden herself in cloaks and long, almost formless dresses; that is why it is a surprise for me to see her like this –unguarded and so _different_. It comes to me like a shameful, whispered secret that she has now matured, much like Rikku has. Of course, Yuna looks as if she has stumbled into this new body and is still unaware of it. Rikku knows her hips and her legs; knows how to a tease a boy just by wearing a dress with a neckline that skims across the rises of her chest. The girl in front of me doesn't know these things but it still makes my pulse trip over its own rhythm.

_This is why I can't let you love him_, I think.

Yuna turns to me suddenly; eyes lambent even without the moon reflected in them. I get nervous all of a sudden, like I've been caught.

"Fix your dress" I order, voice thick.

"Hmm? Oh—!"

She fixes the strap and reaches behind her back to tighten the ties even tighter because she is embarrassed (as if she was being scandalous and crude). I wish I didn't tell her anything just to spare the uncomfortable air around us afterwards.

Yuna cups the peach in her hands and shifts it around with her fingers; I notice that there is only one dainty bite in it. She throws it to me companionably and I catch it deftly, taking a few healthy bites out of it myself before I toss it to her again. The peach is sweet and soft even as the juice dribbles down my chin. Yuna smiles softly into her bite as I swipe the stickiness away from my chin with the back of my hand.

It seems as if normality is restored and our silences are only accentuated from casual thoughts. Our argument no longer lingers around us.

"What are you thinking about?"

Her voice is soft and wet because of the taste of the fruit on her lips. A watery trickle quivers down her wrist from her palm where the peach lies. If she was Rikku, I would lift her wrist to my mouth and follow the trail up with my lips –but this is Yuna, so I can't. Yuna pushes the thin, watery line up to her palm with a finger and brings the small puddle of juice to her lips instead.

I take the skeleton of the fruit and toss it.

A stiff anger hits me like small, sharp, pebbles as a thought forms.

"What if Tidus doesn't love you? Why should you bother to love him then?"

Sometimes my questions sound too personal, even to me. I always ruin the atmosphere, but it was too perfect anyway…it was bound to happen. Rikku could never appreciate this logic.

Yuna is momentarily surprised but recovers angrily, "I _know_ that he feels the same way that I do and I shouldn't have to defend myself or Tidus because of your accusations. He _is _your friend after all. Shouldn't you know him better than that?"

_Good point_. The problem is, I'm very selfish –and I admit to it. I _want_ Rikku and I_ want _Yuna the same way that I want other things. I want them to be a part of what I am…what I am becoming so that I can pinpoint them in memories and careless references.

Sometimes I want too many things.

"I'm just warning you to be careful, that's all."

Her eyes are like hard gems at the bottom of a pool, "You are not my keeper, Gippal."

I get up suddenly to avoid the impact of her words and smile tightly, "I didn't sign up for that job anyway."

She is still seated –this is her small defiance.

"Get up, I'll take you home."

"I don't need your assistance," she says, dusting off the back of her skirt as she rises and walks away without looking back whilst still managing to look prim.

"It's too dangerous for you to do that," I yell at her back. It isn't really as unsafe as I make it seem, but when is it ever safe for a girl to walk, unaccompanied, at night?

I catch up to her and twist her to me without being too forceful. Her wrist is soft and frail in my large hand; just holding her like this has stilled her. I smile uncertainly and duck to sweep a kiss on her brow. "Don't be so proud" I say.

Her eyes are all fire now so I tangle my other hand in hers to hold her down and keep her where I want her. Yuna is waiting, knowing that I want something from her –she is no fool to expectation.

_I could kiss her now; swift and chaste on the lips, just so that Tidus could never have her_.

I lower myself to her and only half-surprise myself when my lips press against her cheek, even though the kiss is filled with unexpected heat.

She sighs softly as if just escaping something that is much too dangerous, but her voice is stern, reprimanding and almost, _unforgiving_: "Don't be so reckless."

_I don't know any other way_, I think, sighing as she whips away from me.

When we walk back together, Yuna goes back across the divide where the river flows, and she's far away again -somewhere I can't reach. It is only when the temple appears through the welcoming stone archway of the village, that I tangle my arm around her small shoulders and tug her against me in a one-sided hug, ignoring her discomfort and tensed back. She can break a man's heart with this miniscule rejection, but I won't tell her that.

I feel the soft down of her hair against my chin. "Don't be mad", I say, and my words are a hum, niggling into her, dispelling the pesky emotions that are separating us.

"I'm sorry," I can't help that it is a whisper, and that I can practice the words over and over again, and never get them to ring the right way except for now...and Rikku would never want them anyway. Because Rikku's a thief and I'm a thief, and action has more value than words, and we both know it.

"I'm sorry." I say it again, I don't know why. I'll toss my reasons away when I have time.

And because this is Yuna and not Rikku, she forgives me, just like that.

■□■

**Author's Note**: That may have been more Gippal/Yuna than normal, but it was done only because I believe that Gippal likes to break apart things and then fix them later on. He won't bother to make nice with Rikku because their relationship rests on the balance of insults and infatuation. Yuna is a different variable to consider, and so, she is dealt with accordingly.

I hope that I was able to capture the underlying desire that Gippal has for both women; with Rikku, he pushes and prods, testing the limits of her affections, and with Yuna, he tries to coax her, tempting feelings within her that he would deny within himself. In my opinion, I think Gippal is the type of person who would want to walk away with clean hands, and so, his manipulations would be lost within love.


	6. Chapter 6

_**When the Sun Sleeps**_

**Disclaimer: **There comes a time in every fanfiction author's 'career' where they must crush their blatant fantasy of owning the rights to FFX-2. _That's my roundabout way of saying I don't own it!_

**Author's Note: **Exams are done, finally. I don't think I can update until the new semester is over, which means, not until summer. I'll try before then, but it isn't likely to happen.

If you've stuck around long enough to read this, it means I've successfully made you more Gippal/Yuna tolerant! Thanks again for the reviews. I read them, smile gently, and write some more ;) 

_**Chapter Six**_

**Yuna**

**16 **

"I'm so sorry, really."

The bartender makes an impatient gesture with the flick of his fingers, shooing us out. I find the small leather pouch in my pocket and remove two gold coins from its confinement, placing it in the grizzly man's open palm.

When he disappears behind the tavern's wooden door, I look at them carefully. Rikku leans heavily against Gippal's side and is jostled suddenly when he starts laughing at something that was half slurred by her. Rikku is momentarily irritated by this until she finds it hilarious as well, and then buckles down to the dirty cobblestones, tugging him violently down with her.

I kneel down before them and take the coarse rope hanging between them, lifting it up to their eye level while simultaneously lifting their hands in the process.

"How did this happen?"

Gippal smiles drunkenly, eyes half-lidded and Rikku giggles suddenly, sputtering something along the lines of: "It was a game."

I really don't see how binding your wrists together with someone else can be seen as game, but I don't comment. My fingers look for a way to loosen the tight knots, but I can't.

"Where are your knives?"

Gippal's eyes light up, "Oh! I have one, it's right he—"

He moves his hand to his pocket and jerks Rikku across him so that she falls onto his lap, then laughs, looking at the swirl-eyed girl, "You are _so_ drunk."

Rikku sits back upright, hiccups a little then shakes her head in a chastising way, "I am too!"

"That's what I said!" he booms suddenly then takes the hand that is bound and brings it to scratch at his head, bringing Rikku's limp one up as well. They both look at each other then snicker to themselves.

I move to Gippal's side and untie his already loose shirt, looking for the diagonal leather strap that usually holds his small dagger. No luck. I blush as Gippal's dulled eyes look at me knowingly. He smiles crookedly then pats the pocket to his right, "It's in here."

My hand encloses air inside his pocket –I've been tricked. I try to get my hand out but he puts his large paw on top of mine, making tsk-ing sounds while shaking his head. "I always knew you were a vixen. _Really_, Yuna. Trying to take advantage of me in my damaged state?"

Behind my blush, my words sound steely, "Let go."

He chuckles to himself then takes my wrist and jerks me to my knees in front of him and presses my forehead to his. I can smell the ale on his breath. Rikku tugs suddenly at the rope with softened annoyance in her tone, "Yes, Gippal, let go."

He obliges, not offended in the least and admits, "We didn't bring our weapons today."

I sigh and hoist them both up by pulling on each of their hands and begin leading the way home, holding the middle of the rope between them in my hand.

"I don't understand what you two were thinking to go to the worst tavern on the island in the middle of the night."

Rikku stumbles a little behind me, unperturbed. "We were thinking, that we wanted a drink", she snorts and laughs again.

"Uncle Cid will be _furious_."

Gippal manages to stride forward loudly, making sweeping gestures with his hands, "That old man? What's –hiccup- hegonnado? Lecture us to death?"

He winks at me then pats my arm; "We have you to do that for us."

I ignore him, just a trifle ruffled by his remark. Gippal is such a fiend, even when he is drunk.

"_Yunie_, slow down" Rikku whines, staggers then stops suddenly.

My eyes search the scenery expectantly, waiting for a familiar landmark to hit me, but I cannot see anything, it's so dark. Gippal stretches and yawns and Rikku falls to her knees on the grass. The torches quiver behind us where the small town is, and I'm not so sure now if we are headed in the right direction. A nice night breeze weaves around us.

"Rikku, please get up. We have to go home before Uncle Cid discovers our empty beds."

The blond girl picks something off the ground and bites into it.

"Don't eat that, " I gasp, "Its filthy!"

She holds the apple up to me, still chewing faithfully, "No, it's clean. See?"

I swat the thing out of her hands and Gippal laughs joylessly.

There is the black form of a tree with vein-like branches reaching up into the purpling sky –this must be the way. Rikku gets up by herself and trots behind me, with Gippal following at his chosen pace.

Rikku twirls on her heels and does not heed my warning to be careful. Her pout has dissolved to a deep grin as she laughs- child-like and light. "Yunie," she hugs me from behind and tangles her careless steps with my careful ones. "You know I love you right?" she tries to reach around me and aims a kiss with lousy precision for my cheek but catches my ear instead. I wipe the stickiness away and try to shake her off, telling her "yes, Rikku, I know and I love you too".

"But you know," she continues, "Sometimes I hate you too. I mean –no not _hate_, just…"

Her words wander off as a painful surprise as I trudge along with the rope in my hand.

"Gippal likes you, and sometimes", she raises one finger and clarifies clumsily, "_Sometimes_, I don't like you 'cause he likes you. And I don't wanna share him and he doesn't wanna share you, so it's all so…"

Rikku grips her head with a hand, "…so _confusing_."

I'm not ready for this change in topic, this confession that rings with too much truth even though she is drunk. My eyes sting, so I turn around, rope still in my hand, so that no other emotions can betray me. There is silence for a few moments until Gippal's loud voice, husky and lingering, rings through the air.

"Hey, wanna know a secret?" he ventures with a laugh. "I'm gonna die pretty soon."

I whip around to look at him and so does Rikku.

"Yeah", he nods, "I mean, probably. I have a gun and those guys in Bevelle have guns too, so chances are… "

He laughs again and corrects himself "Chances aren't good. People die. That's what they do in a war. _That's just what they do_. It's how it is."

He stumbles over words trying to justify his argument.

"Gippal, stop" I whisper. He stops. He saunters towards me and pulls Rikku with him, "You've always known. You always understand these things and Rikku doesn't –or she doesn't want to."

He loops his arm around her as a consolation, which she accepts, then lets his hand drop, its job done.

"I mean, Rikku's good to me. She's easy to kiss, easy to touch, easy to tell her lies."

I'm not sure I want to hear this, and neither does Rikku who looks down at her sandals. It's better if she hears his words as distortions now. I pray that she doesn't remember them in the morning.

I try to push forward but both of them have rooted themselves to the ground.

He slurs over his words, "But you're too hard. Everything has a cost, something has to be paid and not stolen. You want the truth and Rikku wants lies. You're too damn, _untouchable_."

As if to contradict his statement, he grabs my hand and pulls me to him. I can't ignore the way that Rikku's hand brushes against mine as Gippal touches me. He hides his face against my neck, "Tell me something. Tell me one of your truths, Lady Yuna."

His voice is patronizing and bitter, so I don't say anything. I don't like him like this.

Rikku rests her head on my shoulder. Her eyelashes brush against my skin –soft and wet. I don't tell her to stop crying because she would never let a traitorous drop fall down her cheek, not now. Together, we make a terrible trinity.

"Tell me," he rasps, teeth scraping against sound. It feels like a rough murmur on my skin.

"Rikku loves you," I say, eyes closed, voice stern with conviction.

The words jar him like a sudden shove to his chest. He doesn't look at me anymore, even as we walk calmly towards the sun that is rising. Rikku's eyes close then open again, trying to win a battle.

When we reach the ridge of huts lining the beach, his voice comes quietly to me. He doesn't stagger as we walk, I notice. And his eyes aren't glazed in drunkenness. Maybe he never was drunk to begin with and I hadn't noticed.

"Want to know a truth?"

He smiles to the sun. I don't answer him.

"I'm much better at holding ale than Rikku is."

Gippal laughs like a part of him is being carved out and presented to him, "Know something else? I love -"

He cuts himself off, swallows down the words on his tongue and looks at the rope dangling between him and Rikku. There are new words on his tongue, reckless and forbidden and without the resonance of truth that the others would have held. "I love her", he continues, jerks the rope to him so that I lose my grip, and catches Rikku in his arms. She settles into him like the ocean cradling a wave and shuts her eyes -a delicate whisper of eyelashes touching skin. "I love her," he repeats, "and I'm going to marry her when I come back."

Gently, he lifts her to him and carries her sleeping form as we walk. Rikku won't know in the morning, she won't hear the promises that she so desperately wants from him -he is cruel and kind to do this to her now. He wants me to say something, that's why he said it. There is a cage within his words -he wants me to walk inside and lock the door myself.

"My heart is with you both", I finally say, and the words couldn't have been truer.

**Rikku**

**17 **

"I want to steal something."

There's a quick flash of a smile and a brief pause of his hands as he sharpens his knife. I've struck a memory inside of him, something golden, bronze and rust-coloured -the pigments of a time and place where there were drifting sands and sun-baked stone with a name that we can't quite recall. We've lost these memories some time in-between growing up, and all that's left is instinct.

I fist my hair roughly, rake it back with my fingers and feel it cascade forward again. There are eyes with only a portion of consideration, something that is quietly chuckling, flitting to me now and again. Gippal has green eyes but they look black to me -he looks at me without true colour, masking something in him that will end up defeating him later on. I want to be the one to bring down his shields rather than exchange daggers in a glare. I want to slip in-between his heartbeats and gather some significance because I'm just a name and a face, and a gentle kiss when he needs it. I want to be perfect for him, I want something close to love even if it isn't genuine, and I can't help it if wanting isn't enough.

My small knife is pressing into the wood beside my thigh. I coax the tip in and up, digging little bits of wood out of the table that I'm sitting on. I have half a heart carved into the wood without knowing my fingers forced such a frivolous action. _Carve, Rikku._ I taunt myself. _Carve a heart because he won't give you his._

"Cid's girl."

I focus on the movement of the blade tracing over lightly engraved lines, deepening the creases. The press of the handle makes my palm ache, like a blunt pain you would get when gripping a rock at the center of your hand. These little pains that we've all grown up with never familiarize you with the larger pains that have nothing to do with blood or bruises, but something unseen.

"Cid's _girl._"

His voice is a restrained growl now, because anything obvious on the surface of emotion would be admitting that he cares. "_What?_" I hiss back. I've misplaced the blade already, its purpose long past, and lean back on my elbows so that the rough grain bites into my skin and my bones hobble, trying to settle into place. He is near enough to me that I can feel the space between us radiate with warmth, like the memory of a touch.

"Rikku" he says, whetting the blade and focusing a cunning smile meant for me onto the ridged metal. "Will you miss me when I'm gone?"

It's such a sincere question hidden in mock annoyance that my fingers falter in their rhythm against the wood. The warmth has turned to a comfortable heat, and I realize that he's leaning forward, his arm pressed lightly against mine, more by coincidence than purpose. _You can't do this,_ I think, _and touch me like you mean it, like you love me for letting you._

"Who would miss _you_?" I say, meaning to hurt him. He smiles in a way that his lips curl to one side, knowing and teasing, trying to provoke something that I've let him see by accident. Gippal's eyes move back to the blade and he leans back against his chair with lax shoulders.

"Yuna would."

There aren't any words to share. He's thrown in a victim between us, and to harm her would be to harm myself.

The smile he has must be for the ache of captured air halting at my throat -he's caught me without trying. I curve my wrist and flick my hair away from my eyes, crossing my legs so that the challenge will be known before I utter a single word. I lean in close to him in a way that warns -secrets are to be shared, not all of them will be truths. I am sure some spite finds its way onto my lips, but it is only fair to trade venom with venom.

"Yuna will miss Tidus more", I say.

I want to stretch my hand to his and soothe the pain I've caused. I want to smile wickedly and lash at him: _it hurts doesn't it? Knowing you're out of place in someone else's heart._ My fingers trace the lines of my palm, knowing that it itches for a gold coin or a heart -it is hard to tell which. The silence is heavy but I've learned how to support its weight.

"Rikku --"

There is an insensitive chuckle bubbling beneath my breath, and I keep my eyes to the floor, swinging my legs. "You can't have her you know", I smirk bitterly, finding a coin hidden in a side pocket. I roll it across my knuckles and press it into my palm. This is a win and a loss, I think, and spin it on the wood between my hands and his.

My eyes are on the whir of gold, and so are his. Our eyes are anywhere we want them to be, except on each other.

I can't seem to stop this twinge of evil that is overtaking me; I keep the coin spinning and I lower my lashes, my voice a whisper like a tender secret shared between lovers, "He kissed her you know..."

Gippal scratches his nails lightly into the wood without making a sound, and this is as much of an admission that I will ever get from him. The coin is slowing and our hands both reach for it at the same time. My palm is covering his, and I know that I've won. I finally have his eyes on me, and they look betrayed, they look like mine.

"He kissed her..." I repeat, and bravely, take his hand in mine, bringing his thumb to my lips; "Here", the word tremors through his skin and escapes me. His fingers fold into his palm naturally, submitting. I guide them to the side of my neck; let them falter and fall to rest on my collarbone uselessly, "and here." They are all _lies_, horrible poison to drown him so that he can join me in this torture. For the first time, he looks like he wants to hurt me, press his fingertips into my skin until they bruise, but his eyes do the damage instead.

"Don't" he chokes, and it is a command. _Don't be like this_, he means to say, but can't. I've taken words from him too, I'm collecting his losses and mine, and we have so many altogether.

The fire flickers and Yuna is at the door. _I want to steal something._

Before I know it, the demon inside of me has my gentle fingers in his hair, and there is a pause where I'm allowed but one choice. I give a flickering smile to Yuna and twist it to Gippal's lips.

_Steal a kiss_, the demon taunts,_ because there is nothing left to steal._

Somewhere inside of me, I'm crying and begging for Yuna's pain to be separate from mine.

_And I'm not jealous_, I insist, pressing closer to his warmth. _I'm in love_.

**Gippal**

**18 **

"Will you catch me if I fall?"

She makes tentative steps, only her toes touching the grain with her heels meeting the plank after. Her arms are stretched out at her sides, teetering slightly as her foot dips, catches the solidity of wood and evens out. I smirk to her back and try to hide it when she whips around with a shaky smile, looking for an answer -some kind of reassurance.

It's easier to tease her, so I smile slowly and bounce on my heels, making the plank wobble. Yuna shrieks and flails her arms trying to reach for something where there is only air in front of her and too much water beneath her. She almost lurches forward as if she's about to jump, but I lock her down by grasping her arms. Her hands grip mine tightly as she looks down at the dizzying waves beneath us. "Foolish, _foolish_ idea", she mutters, and I laugh.

We are onboard the docked ship that will take me away to war when the time comes. It's a big, faithful ramshackle of wood, bolts and sails that are large enough to smother a small lake. Besides us, the moonlight is its only passenger.

"Don't tell me you never wondered what it was like to 'walk the plank'. Where's your adventurous spirit?"

Yuna presses backwards and shrinks against me, an old fear returning to her. "I believe it fled with the rolling waves," she chances a glance at me then returns to her feet rooted on the wood, "and I have no intention of retrieving it either."

I nudge her forward a little and she takes a few quivering steps forward, takes a breath that halts in her chest and makes a small sound like a muffled whimper. "_Will _you catch me?"

"Only if you're good."

She exclaims my name, distressed and tries to brush her hair out of her eyes while maintaining her balance. The glow of the moon parts her in two - a conflict with shadows and light. As I continue behind her the wood leans under my weight and she shifts back a step. "Let's go back now. I have no wish to plummet to my death because of your _outlandish _idea."

"First of all, it's not such a crazy idea if you think about it with a flask in your hands", she gives me a bristling look from over her shoulder. "And secondly, you won't plummet to your death, at least, not _right_ away. You have at _least_, two more steps forward before that happens."

When she freezes mid-step and loses her balance, I catch her around the waist. She's pretty easy to catch -easier than Rikku because Rikku is all elbows and shoulders and braids; she falls in every direction but Yuna flutters from only one.

"Clumsy", I tease gently.

"_Gippal_."

I laugh a little, not harshly -just quiet and forgetful. "Yeah, yeah" my other arm settles like a thick band around her warm stomach -it's a half-promise that I'm giving her, and she knows what it means because she's already leaning back, hesitant and almost without pressure against me. If she stills, and if I hug her closer, I would be able to touch the side of her neck with a kiss. It's a dangerous thought that I can't follow, not because she wouldn't _allow_ me, but because she wouldn't _forgive_ me if I did. It's different when it's Rikku because I always have to brush her hair back and kiss her with my teeth first -you can't be gentle with a friend, not one that's so much like yourself. With Yuna, it's trickier, because all I have to do is nuzzle closer and already I'm at her shoulder -but I _shouldn't_ be, I _can't_ be.

Yuna leans away from me, still in my grasp, but tries to squirm out of it. There's an unsure but innocent twist to her lips when she tells me to stop because I'm tickling her. In-between the arc of her eyelashes against my collarbone and a smile caught in her laugh, there's a warning and a welcome (maybe I'm imagining it) and I don't know which to follow.

We both settle down onto the plank, listen to the touch and miss of waves nearing the shore. I lean my legs over one side and brace myself with my elbows touching behind me on the wood. She lays her legs across my lap companionably and rests her head in the crook of her arms -she's dreaming again. Her anklet chimes a nameless tune when she fidgets to get comfortable. Sometimes, we still find ourselves listening for the sound despite ourselves. Rikku and I know that she'll always be there, and we'll always be there to listen for it even though her father can't.

My finger finds the the trail of charms absently, "You still wear this, but you don't get lost any more."

She smiles like she's peering at a secret caught between the pages of a diary. "I still get lost, sometimes. When I'm with..." she laughs, embarrassed and quiet, "when I'm with _him_. But it's a different kind of 'lost', a _good_ kind."

I can't let her see my sneer.

"There can't be a good kind. Lost is just _lost_. It's always bad," I can't help it if I sound sour.

The waves are crashing slightly now, not embracing like they were before.

Yuna nudges my leg with her toe and giggles to herself, "You know what I mean."

I scoff lightly, but she doesn't catch it -maybe I'm being too gentle with her. She starts humming one of the temple hymns, soft and lilting so that it whispers instead of urges. It reminds me of sunlight through the cracks of floorboards and the pleasant musk of incense and heat of the attic room where she and Rikku sleep. There are other images too -the ones that come unbidden and unwelcome. Things like the glint of light on metal and the pulse of blood escaping a wound. I feel nauseous.

"Look," I start off uneasily, scratching the back of my neck, "I wanted to tell you something."

Yuna smiles like a flower blossoming. "Tidus had to tell me something too", she says, but I barely hear it. "He said -"

" -He wanted you? Loved you? Needed you?" The words come out in an explosion, automatically summoning a frown and my teeth clamping onto the inside of my cheek to obscure the harshness.

She lifts her hands up in silent request for me to pull her upright, and then curls her toes into the underside of my calves, seeking warmth. Yuna laughs a little bit and grasps my hand in hers, squeezing enthusiastically, "Yes, he _did_. Isn't it wonderful?"

"It's foolish is what it is."

She lays her head on my shoulder and sort of tucks herself into me -it kills me a little bit, she doesn't even know what she's doing. "Foolish and wondrous", she agrees, eyelashes fluttering against my neck, incipient and not nearly enough of a feeling for me to count it as something. I wish it was. I wish it was like Rikku whose touches are always solid and purposeful -Yuna's are quiet ghosts, little accidents.

The ocean rolls into waves that pounce and halt in a sudden rush against the ship and the spray invades our little pocket of warmth and peace. A drop catches me on my shoulder, then my nose and already, its setting little jewels of moisture in our hair.

"Let's go, I don't want to get wet." She fingers her hair, pressing the small pearls of water into her locks unintentionally.

"No, wait."

Yuna hunches her shoulders together, shirking against the cold and smiles slightly. I notice that she's wearing red, a passionate colour that overpowers her innocence -she's different...She's different and I'm losing her, and Rikku alone isn't enou-

The spray is falling like rain, plastering our hair down, losing trails on our skin and clothes. Yuna's hands come to my hair, and she pushes blond over my eyes -a gentle tease- giggling in her heart-breaking way, then stretches past me over the plank to get to the other side. She raises her knees over my lap so that her feet rest in front of her, making a hollowed triangle that her skirts slip away from. "Come on," she half-pleads, "Tell me on the way." Already, she's off the plank, skipping onto the ship, twirling around the mast's pole, toying with the ropes. She's distracted in a lovely sort of way.

I stagger after her, "Yuna, wait."

I have her hand in mine, but her eyes aren't resting on me the way I want them to -she's thinking of someone else.

She's wearing Rikku's dress -the red one that shrinks and twists as she moves, the one that steals down at the back and murmurs a sloping curve at the front. I can imagine her visiting _him_, letting rough hands fist the soft material up and the ties at the back sighing loose. It's a secret that the crimson is telling me but it might also be a lie.

_She thought she would make him stay...He wants to but he can't and that's enough for her to..._

"We're leaving today, before the sun rises" I say, not bothering to hide the harsh bark of my words because my irrational anger insists that she didn't bother to hide anything from _him_.

I could leave her like this, but she's tangling her fingers into my shirt, trying to keep me still.

"_Today?_" it's a gasp when she says it.

"Cid changed the date. We'll catch them by surprise. Hopefully you gave Tidus a fitting farewell."

The sting of my words is missed -not dodged. She's perfect and I can't break her. It was some demon inside of me, something crazy that made me believe my own lies. Yuna never takes for herself, she only gives. I've misunderstood her, but my racing pulse won't admit it.

"Today? Gippal, no."

She clutches my shirt, tugs hesitantly, desperately, in a quiet volume where Rikku would tear, shred. Fear is shades of green and blue, and she has both. "You can't..." she whispers, staggers behind me and loses her words at the back of her throat. I don't wait for her to let go; I won't slow down as I walk. _You can have him if you want_, I think. _It won't matter tomorrow, or the day after_.

"Slow down, stop, please."

Something is wavering like the shade beneath a tree when a breeze drifts by -there's a point that she's reached. I hope she doesn't cry; I hope she does.

"You're leaving, and you're not going to tell Rikku, are you?"

My fingers fold into my palm, and then slacken out of place. There is a tremble inside of me that insists I'm caught -caught, but not captured.

"Why?" she asks, bounding beside me to keep up.

_Because it's easier to break things now and promise to fix them later._

"She'll cry", I say, stumbling over trying to sound earnest. _She'll cry_, I think, _then hate me and love me at the same time. Rikku wants me when I don't want her._

Yuna is startled by the bluntness of my excuse, no curved edges to maneuver around the truth skillfully, just the ugly head of a lie. "She already does", Yuna whispers, "every night, when she thinks I'm asleep. The tears are for you but -" It is the closest thing to an accusation she has gotten to, but she can't find it in herself to continue because Yuna is mired between keeping loyalties on both sides - it is a kind of No Man's Land that she has settled into quietly.

I can see her heart in her eyes; even though she's letting the words fall out for Rikku, there's a shallow rent that I can fix or deepen -she's giving me a choice.

"What will make you stay for her? What does she have to do?"

There aren't any answers, just me -a lion in wait. We're at the prow, facing the beach with eyes that won't dare rest on each other through the tremble of ocean and the important awkwardness that comes with trying to voice out a caged truth.

Her cold fingertips are trying for some solidity at my wrist -I don't pull away from her this time.

She's in front of me, a glass figure that I mustn't touch. The sky is casting mournful shades of blue and grey on both of us, but her lips are trying at a smile that wants to admit silent realization.

It is a soft sound, like petals brushing against flesh when she asks, "What do _I _have to do?"

Yuna knows now, and I know, and the funny thing is, we both don't want to. It isn't about Tidus, not really, not completely. It isn't entirely about Rikku either -not our friend, not our wall to hide behind. It's her shadow touching mine, her calves brushing against my own -this strange dance of haste and _want _that feels like _need_. I want to disown every corrupt thought, but it's too late for apologies because she's already by my side, trying to make me stay for someone else.

_Give me something that can never be taken back._

Yuna understands completely, she always does. It is veiled permission that she gives me when I let my fingers sink into the dewy strands of her hair, rasp against the curve of her cheek, down her neck. I whisper a kiss onto her temple; feel the flowering heat of her cheek when I get there.

I want to make her imperfect for me -that is the only way I can have her.

There are tears trailing down, halting at her chin -I can tell because they curve around my fingertips and down my wrist with warmth, chasing away the impersonal touch of the cold ocean. Between the hammer of her pulse against my palm, I can decide on a justification:

_Yuna will make it easier_, I think. _She'll make it easier to love Rikku. She'll make it easier to leave._

When I kiss her it is rough and taking because I know that if she could, Yuna would hollow herself out for me. And I want to erase every mark Tidus has ever made on her, but I can't, because she's not mine and I'm not hers, but the lines in-between can be blurred. So for now, I have to keep her away and hold her close, brush her hair back behind her ears and embrace her tears with my fingers whisking them away. It is the touch of me against her lips that scares her the most, but Yuna could never deny me, not of this one touch, not when I may die tomorrow.

She curls herself into my embrace, shaking -she is a poor deceiver, having no such experience herself.

"I forgive you", she whispers.

I believe her too.

□

When I visit Rikku, it is already dawning and there are tears dotting her eyes. There isn't any light in the room, only her golden hair finding a way to gleam without any assistance. It's as if she knows without realizing, and I can love her even a little bit for that. I never end up saying goodbye to her, but she does -with a breathy kiss and rushed touches and her dress falling past her shoulders.

"I love you", I kiss the words onto the curve of her neck.

She doesn't believe me, not even a little bit, and I don't either.

■□■

**Author's Note: **Knowing that your best friend is in love with you is the scariest thing, isn't it? And, yes, I'm aware of the fact that Gippal's thoughts are fragmented, but I find it to be the case when you come across sudden truths that you don't really want to come across at all. I won't bother to justify the content of the pieces that I've written, just take from it what you will.


	7. Chapter 7

**Really Long Author's Note:**

I'm happy that what I've written has inspired emotion -whether it is anger, sadness or happiness. I know that I've created an unsatisfactory but true situation, and sometimes, it's even hard for me to understand the complexity of it. My interpretation of this triangle and the characters is based purely on interaction and emotion which some people may not accept -and believe me when I say, I understand the anger and sadness that I've written into this. I write Gippal as one to hate, even a little bit, but love at the same time because he is a contradiction of selfishness and selflessness when it comes to both Yuna and Rikku. Rikku I wrote as constantly pleading for attention because she is restless without it, always confusing _want_ with _need_. Yuna is portrayed as almost perfect, but too easily broken. She strives for something that can never be, and is always hurt by it. I believe all of them to be tragic characters of their own kind. I suppose the reason for this triangle is to show you a different examination of love and friendship -my rendition, that is. I'd like to think that each character displays a different kind of love (because I do not think that there is only one). To have a better understanding, I always approach it as so: Yuna represents innocent love and a desire for stability. Rikku is yearning and love that wants but does not know why. Gippal is passion, uncertainty and the search for something he himself is not sure he will find.

I am glad that some readers have a connection to this, or even, a disconnection, because all I really want to provoke is a sense of _feel_, because different situations permit different emotions, and I find it necessary to exercise both the mind and the heart during these times.

**Regular A/N:** Sorry for all the a/n's! This chapter took a lot out of me, and it was extremely difficult to write. It got to the point where I wasn't sure if I would be able to continue it. But it's here, and it's _long_ and rather _heavy_. There are some things I had to get these characters to do/confront and it had to be within a timeframe, so...don't hate me (lol). So enjoy for now, don't know when I'll be back with the **final** chapter. Forgive me, I'm too cruel to you readers (if there are any left..)! Thank you for all the kind reviews.

_**Chapter Seven**_

**Yuna**

** 19 **

The morning breaks into the sky with a watery sun and an agitated breeze riffling through the leaves like the worn pages of a book. The day itself has the look of one with misery written into its canvas with black ink -a colour speaking volumes of finality. I awake with foggy eyes and a feverish head though I am ice-cold and without feeling.

Last night I had fallen asleep in the temple, murmuring my father's name until I found his statue half lost among the company of shadows. I touched my hand to the stone of his statue, resting my head upon the creases of his stilled robe and wished the feel of soft linen and love and warmth would be pressed against me rather than this harsh feel of coldness and the smell of earth, too heavy and unnatural for it be him. The statue is unmoving, and I wished I was as well.

For hours, the ink black of the sky was my companion, along with the sound of time passing, and myself, bidding all tears away. And I remember the _cold_ -the statue who mustn't be my Father (otherwise he would not allow me to feel such misery), my fingertips frosty and grasping for anything to steal some strength. My lips and the side of my cheek are still crushed against the platform near Lord Braska's feet, absorbing the feel of something lost and artificial and harmful though I cannot stop clinging to it. And still, I am wishing away the touch of a man, of a friend, on my lips.

I rise slowly, ignoring the protesting ache in my body and kneel at the altar, not forgetting my morning prayers. My skirts circle comfortably around me and my hair falls to shadow my eyes as I bow my head. Is this how Gippal would've fallen in love with Rikku, I wonder. Would he have seen her bowing to something so much greater, with her beautiful sunshine-coloured tresses cascading about her and lashes fluttered closed? Would he love her even more, crying her pretty tears onto his neck? I tangle my own hands in my dusty brown hair inelegantly and lay my fingers lightly against my lips. Why does he love me?

I sigh gently. The candles have burnt to nothing, but the misty smoke remains. For a brief pause in time, I am taken by a memory of Rikku and I -young and precious and equally foolish, kneeling by the altar and manipulating the streaks of grey rising from the smouldering wicks, creating patterns and pictures that only we could discern. Opening our palms to the smoke, insisting that each mote floating in the air was a faerie or an angel, each time hoping we could snatch one in our hands and make true this childish fantasy of ours. These memories are lost, I think, to change and time and hearts that want to forget.

"Rikku" I remember her name on my tongue, letting it echo softly and lose itself among the marble steps and welcoming corridors, and our attic room where it will never reach.

I fist my skirts away from my lap as I rise and toss my hair away from my eyes, finding our room and Rikku in my white nightgown. Our room speaks of a secret, as if Rikku has just found herself in it, as if it is no longer hers or mine. She rises slowly from the sheets and makes her way to the mirror, hands pawing for the ivory brush we share and looks at me only sometimes, with fingers nervously working the knots out of her golden hair and a smile, thin and spared only for me. Her hands flutter to her back with natural ease. "Help me untie this" she asks, voice so quiet, as if stolen or lost.

Her eyes find mine in the mirror, then duck away, embarrassed or maybe, shy. I loosen the ties, thinking that they looked to be knotted impatiently after being torn loose sometime in the night. My gasp is halted and burning at my throat -I will not allow such an accusation on her, _never_, I vow.

"Yuna" she breathes my name, losing to an emotion, "Did...did he say goodbye to you?"

My fingers fumble, and Rikku's back goes rigid. Our bodies both admit to everything and nothing at once.

"No."

Her shoulders go lax, and the nightgown parts at the back where I have relieved it of its bindings. I dare my voice to be strong, "Did he...?" _have your company_, I don't say, but she understands as I do. Rikku's hair slips away from her neck.

"No", she answers.

I see a mark on her neck, where a kiss would have met and scorched upon skin.

Our gaze meets in the mirror, and we won't dare speak a word, but our eyes are apologizing.

**.0.**

Time speaks to us in the strangest of ways. For the most part, it has been silent and serpentine, easing around the quiet of summer and twisting about our necks, choking off any words Rikku and I could possibly share together. In the sunlight of childhood, there never seems to be enough. There was always a wish for endless days and too many tomorrows to count. Now the days spread long and tiresome in such a way that we all feel it inescapable. We've learned to count time by the days of war. It's almost over.

I sigh tiredly and lay the back of my hand against my brow, feeling the soft coolness of the ocean touch there and murmur down the sides of my face in small drops. The path it takes is familiar with sweat and blood, and I try to push back the thought. Gippal will not be unwell forever. I chance a glance at the red tent behind me, thinking of the battered soldiers with bodies bleeding for freedom and bruises burning for innocence once lost.

My skirts are too heavy to hold along with the water basin, so I let them fall and brace against the shifting waves as I enter the ocean further. The ocean trembles and gathers in the basin, fire burnt and grey with the reflection of a broken sky. It will have to do, I submit, even as I wish for a proper sunset. Craning my neck upwards, the heavens seem to be as fractured as I feel them to be. If only I could mend the unseamed sky...If only I could mend...

Gippal is far too proud to utter a complaint of pain. He has not yet lost _his_ war, you see. He is still fighting.

The waves tug at the tail ends of my dress, demanding me back into the harshness of it even as I leave it. I hold the basin as I would an offering in the temple, and smile, though it is weak and lacking in all things it should mean. Gippal receives it kindly when I enter the tent and lay the basin down by his side. My fingertips skitter and rest at his forehead, fearful and hesitant, until courage finds me and my palm touches briefly against him.

I frown at my hand, but he smirks at me. "This fever refuses to leave you", I say.

He could be smiling, and it could be a true one if a grimace would not be expected, even as he twists his head and speaks, "Among other things."

Rikku's hair is a soft gold spread about his chest and neck as she sleeps, settled in the crook of his shoulder. She is even beautiful in her worry of him, and still, Gippal is loath to show appreciation for it.

I wet a cloth in the basin and bring it to his brow, "She has reason to."

Gippal's skin hisses hot against my fingers fanning across his forehead, pushing back the stubborn lightning-gold of his hair.

He catches me by the wrist, "And do you?"

The candles shiver and his fingertips are much too warm on my skin. He has a soldier's touch now, rough and trying to be gentle as his hand encircles my wrist more completely, enclosing the white ribbon tied there. I have still not let go of that small part of my childhood, the simple wish for hiding a secret love, hoping it will come true. I persist with this innocence, wishing I was not absent of it.

I speak his name, pleading, and Rikku stirs and clutches more tightly to him.

His thumb is brushing against the inside of my wrist, curious, as if he means to remove the ribbon.

"Yuna."

I gasp lightly, and he halts. It was not his voice beckoning me, but another's. _Please_, my eyes beg his. Gippal's grip is unsure now, fearful, as if he admits to losing something but refuses to. His gaze is fixed carefully on me, gentle but wanting, always _wanting_; as if he's a boy again, telling me, _Stay_.

But I can't. I take his hand in my other one, pressing my cheek against it softly, letting my lashes flicker, ticklish against his skin. "Please", I whisper. He will want to be selfish again, but his touch is failing and weak, finally succumbing. I lean away from him and he has my ribbon, tangling soft and white between his fingers, but I no longer care. I tear away from him, my skirts fluttering behind me with the same hurriedness of my heart, and escape the red tent into the stillness of night.

He is there, and it is a miracle, and my heart has broken so many times for him that when its pieces fix back together, it is dizzying.

_Tidus._

I do not breathe his name, it would diminish what little time I have, and simply fall securely into his arms. My breath catches and so does his. It is a dream. He nuzzles his chin against my hair and clutches me tighter about the waist, death-tight, desperate, and scared. It is not a dream. "How?" I breathe.

I rest my head against his heart, feeling it pound and quake, feeling mine do the same. This moment is too blissful, too tragic and ruining. His breath riffles against my hair, and he understands my question as if he had spoken it himself. "I came for you", he says. "I couldn't take it...the war, _Yuna_, it's senseless. People are dying for a cause that they don't even understand. I can't bear it, and..." he sounds young again, she thinks, and then remembers that he is. "And I don't want to die", he hides his face against my neck. He has broken me.

"I don't want to lose you", he speaks, words as a soft kiss against my neck.

Tidus pulls away from me, and I stumble closer for want of his warmth, but he has me gently by the shoulders, smiling in his gentle way, akin to the subtle lapping of waves upon the shore. Gentle, I think, and hesitant, pure; both wanting and needing.

"Yuna," he speaks my name as a blessing, "don't cry." I had felt the tears absently, but my throat constricts, trying to press back the pain of a heart that wants to love, but is scared to do so, fearful of what it would mean. Fearful, though I shouldn't be. His palms are warm against my face, carefully breaking apart the trails of wetness upon my cheeks. He is closer, much closer than before, and grasps my hands in his, and for the first time in a long while, I take in the blue of his eyes, missing them even as I see them.

I remember my voice and raise a hand to his brow where a cut laces into his skin, "Are you hurt? Oh Tidus, are you injured", my hands flit to his face, to his neck, his shoulders before he stops me. "No", he laughs, reassuring. My hand drifts back to his brow, tracing the cut and thinking it will scar. He catches my wrist and presses his lips against the place where the ribbon would have been, and my breath catches. "Yuna", his words are rushed, "come away with me."

I tense and he feels it. "We'd have a good life", he reassures, "we'll...we'll be together always, I promise. I won't leave you, ever." He brushes my hair behind my ear, gently, so heart-breakingly gentle.

"We can go somewhere far, somewhere with hills, and the ocean. Just you and me. I'll build a house for us, I'll work, anything...I'll do anything, so you..." he touches his hand to my face carefully, scared I might shatter, and I may, "so you can have everything."

His name is at my lips, but his thumb grazes me gently, and I've lost any words I'd hope to speak. He's scared and so am I.

"Will you...?"

_I will._

"Oh _Tidus_", I shudder and collapse onto his chest, thinking I could not deny him, could not possibly refuse his pleading, ocean-blue eyes and heart, always open for me. I _mustn't_, I think. I would destroy him, I would destroy myself. This time I cry surely - for the smile he gives me, for his lips near my ear, comforting, for the selflessness I had never expected to receive, for never being deserving of it.

"Tidus, I...I _can't_."

His eyes are away from mine, finding answers, and finding reasons in all that is around us when he cannot find an explanation in my tears. Our eyes both settle on the red tent at the same time, and I don't need to speak the words, but I do.

"He needs me."

I realize what I've said as I'd recall a knife cutting into my flesh, as a pain piercing through me, and it all seems like a mistake. But Tidus has already forgiven me, "It's ok."

He holds me as if it must be enough for a dozen lifetimes and presses his cheek to mine, whispering forgiveness. "Yuna", he nuzzles my cheek, pressing his lips there; and his sad smile crashes for a brief moment, relenting to true misery, but he corrects it swiftly, leaving this tragic feeling inside of my heart along with his. He smoothes his hands through my hair, and I try to place the sensation into memory. I speak his name one last time and he kisses me soundly, caressingly, perfectly. His fingers disentangle from my hair and traipse softly against my neck, to draw invisible strokes past my collar bone to my shoulders, falling at last to my elbows.

"Don't go", I whisper, unthinking, against him. "I'm sorry", I say, thinking it will make it all better, "I'm sorry."

"Don't be", he says and presses against me so firmly that I feel as if the touch would never leave me.

When he finally pulls away, I feel breathless and dizzy and feverish without him, without his strength. I wrap my arms around myself for lack of his. He departs as swiftly as he can, lest my tears force him to stay forever. When he is gone, when his footfalls have vanished and his touches still have not, I return to the tent.

Both Gippal and Rikku slumber peacefully. I brush Rikku's hair from her face gently so as not to wake her, then find my place beside Gippal, placing my palm against his skin. "Don't ever leave her", I whisper to him, pressing my lips to his brow. I kneel beside him, trying to quiet my heart. "If you do", I speak to his closed eyes, "it'll break her."

_Believe me, I know._

**Rikku**

** 20 **

The sun is fainting, burning only so that it is a gentle colourless glow, peeking between the meshwork of leaves and branches, and treading on the aged wood floor of the attic room. The air is dense with the scent of dust, incense, and old perfumes losing fragrance to all the time that has passed.

Yuna's shadow flitters across the floor and brushes over me as she makes her way to the mirror, smiling and holding a beautifully jewelled necklace to herself, not daring to put it on. "Isn't it lovely?" she asks, and angles it differently, letting the light catch on it and shimmer, letting her hair shift shades to a honey-toned brown as the sun makes illusions for us.

I smile gently from my seat on the edge of the bed, twining a ribbon in my hair, feeling the soft silk of it like liquid between my fingers. "Your mother must have worn it at her wedding", I say, then teasing, "you can wear it at yours."

She frowns in consideration, "We are not allowed to marry. We must dedicate ourselves to the temple, you know that Rikku."

I leap to my feet and twirl on my heels, the wood aching happily beneath me. The hem of my mother's skirt circles and falls with my movements, sequins jostled this way and that, colours skimming dizzily. She might've been a gypsy; I smile, thinking I could be one too. "Still..." my voice trails off dreamily, too entranced by my own display to catch the worry in Yuna's look. There is something downtrodden and tear-soaked in her gaze, as a memory lifts and settles in her eyes. Yuna lets her beautiful, mourning eyes see the fabrics of our mothers' dresses and gowns in the weathered, old trunk, and nothing else. Because I am too fearful, too selfish, too heartbroken myself, I do not tempt her misery to be spoken, and instead, dwell on my own.

"It looks beautiful on you", she says, and her fingers fret and fix the ties more carefully onto me. I force my hands into the assortment of bangles and bracelets laid out haphazardly on our dresser like forgotten treasures, and admire at the way they glitter and clatter at my wrists. The sound is new and young, yet, the jewellery is set with both gold and time long passed. It chimes and stutters a tune once played, when my mother was alive and with a heart as ready for love as mine.

"Lucky we found all those old things", I twist and watch my skirts dance around me, never quite satisfied. "Otherwise, we'd be stuck in this tiny room with nothing -" _but each other_, I don't say, "to do."

My heart starts and batters about inside me uneasily, betraying me. The truth, however uncomfortable it may be, always skitters across my tongue and pushes past my lips. I'm a horrible person for lying, but I'm even worse for almost saying such a horrible truth. These stormy silences do as much damage as the actual words, for they still lay charged and unspoken between us. There are too many harmful secrets, hiding in corners, in the creases of our bed sheets, in the soft rose of our lips.

"Yes", she whispers quietly, kneeling to reach into the trunk with cautious hands. There are scarves and gowns, and hats, stunning and speaking of a time where we do not belong, but where we willingly venture. Yuna doesn't dare to try on any of them, only flutters her fingers across the silks, tracing the embroidery, pressing the pads of her fingertips into the textures. I wonder if the temple has been strict with her, but surely they could not mean to suppress her so fully, to extinguish all enjoyments. No, I think. I am to blame. This sadness is the symptom, and I am the cause.

I join her on the floor, conciliatory, and rummage through our treasures, every part of me singing and rippling with sound as I move. I find it first, and I am glad. The lace is fine and firm yet frail, as it borders the sloping curve of the veil. I am unstealthy, walking on my knees the short distance to her, but she is still surprised when I let the veil fall nicely onto her head. She looks up at me through it, smiling but shocked, and wonders at the magnificence of it. "Just like a princess", I say, giggling at the childishness of it, smiling because she is also.

We are young girls again, or at least, we remember that we always were, and this remembrance is more comforting than upsetting. She ducks her head and laughs; the veil slips over her head, and she could be a bride, or a faerie. The gown, when we find it, in between the gentle teasing and the momentary magic of a friendship regained to its proper form, is almost celestial or looks to be so in the first glimmer of moonlight. It is a soft, blushing pink to compliment the natural flush in her cheeks. "Yuna, you _must _wear it", I laugh, both she and I knowing that her protestations are much too weak to keep me away from her.

It fits nicely on her. The lace pattern of the veil continues on the hem of the dress, and the cloth touches and sweeps across, past her collar bone, the straps collapsing off her shoulders, swirling around her forearms. I am proud, like a sister, and envious as a friend. Envious as one would be of a saint, or an angel, of beauty that you would not want to take from another, but claim for yourself as well. Her hands settle on her shoulders, where her skin is uncovered. Her fingers search, inquisitive, and wish that she was not so barren of fabric. I smile.

Her eyes are collecting the details, and she breathes in, holding her breath, "I should not be wearing this. It is...improper. If anyone sees us-"

I claim her hands in mine and decorate her wrists like mine, fitting the silver circlets on her, letting them collect, fall and whisper as she fidgets.

"Nonsense", I say, and it acts as answer enough.

Excitement is opening inside of me like a sparrow stretching its wings, and it is the same reckless nature that brings me to trouble, simply because it cannot be ignored. Yuna's wrist is already in my hand, and we are tip-toeing down the stairs, our feet quiet and familiar, our hems fluttering across that thin space just above the floor, and our bangles, insistent, are the only traitors to our escape.

The temple's warmth leaves us as soon as we enter the chill of the world outside, but it is freer and less harsh in its judgements, and so we are less careful as our toes find the grass. We are grinning like vandals at a heist, unburdened.

The fog is heavy in the air, appearing as vagrant clouds now sunken to touch the earth. We are not as fearful as we used to be, but we still skitter and flutter like nervous deer in the dark.

Pops will have a conniption, but we're not going back, not to that attic room where we are too shy to look at each other, some miserable, tentative truth isolating us to our own sorrows.

Her hand is still in mine, and even though the years have gone past our childhood, I've always kept her with me this way. I am the brave one, I will trample all the tall grass so that it lies like an itchy mat at her feet, and I will banish all the spirits so that she may not see them. It's a foolish, childish thought created when we were young, when Yuna was my doll to play with, ever pleasant with pink lips and pale skin untouched by the fever of the sun. She is mine. That's what I had thought; that she came for me and that we would be friends and sisters, for Mother left too early to give me one.

I clutch her hand with more pressure because her fingers are much too thin and too loose in my grip. Yuna accepts this, I think, she has always relented to me. But just as suddenly as I think that, I wonder if I am more of a kidnapper, and she, more of a willing victim.

The moonlight touches and misses as we scuttle and half-jog among the leaves and dusty ground, chasing an unseen enemy, chasing the last of our trio, chasing Gippal. But he is not there, only the memory of him, bounding like a wild-thing, laughing, already assuming victory with Yuna and I persistent but failing to catch him even as we run.

Where was your swiftness that day, I frown, scorning the dancing shadows of trees that should be his, but are not. What happened to your runner's legs that night, when everything fell apart for me; when you stumbled past the shore, looking like a nightmare with the touches of war all over you, bleeding red victory for a battle you most certainly did not win.

"Rikku, please...Slow down"

"No, we have to..."

I never finish what I started to say, and perhaps, there is nothing _to_ say, there is nothing but feeling, and it's strong enough to spread between the two of us and create an understanding. Yuna is silent again, but her worry is still present, even as we tremble, running through the cold with exhaustion tearing into us with each step.

I hear his voice, his teenager voice of three years ago, golden and plying, soft-tempered and it feels like a taste rather than a sound. Memories open up like old wounds, "Try as hard as you want, but you won't be able to catch up. All you'll ever see is my back, Cid's girl", and he doesn't have time for me anymore, won't look at me anymore, and I'm chasing that boy again, just so I can yell at him, "Fool. You think you're invincible." Then quieter, gently in the shell of his ear, "You're just like me."

These illusions aren't helping me any, but they're keeping my legs pumping, and Yuna's hand tight in mine. I realize where I'm going only after his image, a man now, roughly hewn, strung together by want and need, is before me, and I say it silently in my mind, finally, _I love you_.

We stop, both of us, at the same time. There's nowhere left to run.

"We should go back", I say, suddenly a coward.

Gippal's window is open to thieves and paramours and fleeting breezes.

"We should go in, don't you think?" Yuna says, and leads me forward, the tone in her voice untested and new to me, as if she really means to say, "This is what you wanted, isn't it?"

The wood of his windowsill is familiar and trustworthy as we lean our legs over to the other side. A raw sensation overwhelms me as Yuna and I stand side-by-side, and my smile is sick with pride and assumptions as I think, _let him choose between the two of us, let him decide. _Yuna's smile is unknowing, ever innocent, and it's as easy as wading into water for her, as simple as sunlight warming your face in summer.

There is a single candle illuminating the room, one that threatens to die or spill over, smouldering to nothing or igniting into a true flame. He is wavering with the light, all broad shoulders and hard angles pronouncing strength. There's a flask in his hands, well-worn and precious, warm with the ginger burn of ale. His hair shadows one side of his face, mysterious, dangerous, hardly a boy anymore.

His eyes are closed, but the ease that shows itself in his position, in his tired but comfortable movements tell me that he has expected this. Perhaps, he has even wanted it.

Gippal gestures with his hand to both of us, beckoning us closer.

I am braver in this smoky air, something inside of me burning, trapped and hidden is speaking in low tones, wanting more out of the situation. Gippal is not surprised when I sit down beside him, near enough for our arms to touch, for the heat of his breath to hit the side of my neck. He is lion-like, knowing and waiting.

I watch his eyes smoulder green, trying to correct the softness and the selfish desire that surfaces whenever he sets his gaze upon something forbidden and unattainable. He has his eyes on Yuna, who still has her back pressed against the wall as if willingly cornered, hesitant but without fear. She shakes her head slightly, _No_, she won't come.

Gippal shrugs with indifference and leans back on one upraised elbow onto the bed, voice flippant and somehow blaming, "I've never forced you."

I snatch the flask from him, pausing before the drink reaches my lips, "Yeah Gippal, you're a real saint."

I choke on the words when he pulls the flask away too swiftly, the ale new to my tongue again after not tasting it for so long singes me all the way down to my stomach. He puts the flask down on his desk and his fingers clench tight on the wood. I want to provoke him now so that the anger lies on me and not on Yuna who is too precious, too delicate to take it from him.

"All you've ever done is force us to do things, all you do is hurt us. You leave a place after you've taken all that you want from it, and you come back still expecting more. You want everything in the world to change for you, but you won't change for it." My teeth are tight and grinding, for lack of breath, and I am cruel again, desperate. "Why did you come back anyway?"

His eyes are sharp, electric, and I realize that I've summoned this hatred he has for me at this moment.

"Why didn't I just _die_, you mean?" I gasp at his words, and know that deep inside I have been wishing that he wouldn't come back to us, just so that in some sick way, we would even our score. My love and my hatred for him confused me so utterly that I did not know what I wanted after he had left. All that I knew was this sickly ache in my heart that I wanted to go away.

There is silence, there is the three of us, and there is too much heat in the room.

Yuna is frowning, and there are tears biting at the back of my eyes for the horrible truth that sits before me. I'm sorry for so many things.

He drags his feet across the floor to the bed and slumps down, suddenly drained and heavy with carrying too many thoughts. "I've been asking myself that same question", he says quietly, and for once, submits to weakness, covering his face with his hands.

I lean my head on his shoulder, pressing my cheek to the scarred skin, my mouth at his neck whispering, "I'm sorry."

Yuna abandons her wall, and closes in, tip-toeing into his niche of discomfort and warrior's mentality. She brushes the hair from his eyes, and traces her fingertips across the length of his fingers, still tightly closed, unyielding and hiding his eyes.

"It's over now", she says, "The war is over". Those are the words he'll want to keep hearing until he believes them for certain.

I curl my fingers around his shirt, twist close and crush myself to his side so that Yuna's soothing voice will reach me as well. Her hand is soft, gentle, coaxing at his wrist, and his fingers finally fall away. He tenses, still angry with her though I do not know why, but he is quietly relenting as she takes his hand in hers, reminds it of its purpose, of kindness, so that it remembers that it no longer needs a dagger or a gun. She has his hand, and keeps it, though her lips are near enough to brush against his thumb if she was to speak, though he wants to but will not touch her smile with his fingertips.

We are all together with our individual hurts, looking to be healed.

I clutch his other hand and Yuna leans her head to his companionably.

For now, this will be enough.

**Gippal**

** 21 **

The world turns to amber when I close my eyes, the sunlight burning aged gold and copper against my eyelids, and all around me. There are sounds and scents assaulting me, all of them welcome. If I rest my head back on the gritty brick, arms crossed with sturdy feet, I can isolate the familiar chaos into a chorus of sounds.

Footsteps pounding, dashing, racing -little children happy and quarrelling amongst themselves for a bit of candy, some of them already pickpockets in the making. Wind chimes chattering somewhere off in the distance, probably from the temple we left behind, reaches my ears. Nearby is the murmur of the old woman at her stall, eyes wrinkled into slits and pockets always full with herbs, promising a cure to every ailment. There is the steady _click, click _of the weaver, the woman's foot generous and skilled at the pedal of the loom. The sailor's wives are busy gossiping like hens at a doorstep while their husbands unload the lobster traps from their boats.

The market has not changed at all, as if it refuses to believe there ever was a war. I breathe in deeply; the air is thick with the humid aroma of spices, sand and many bodies slicked with a sheen of sweat. It is not an entirely unpleasant scent.

When I open my eyes again, I am dizzy with the movements and colours of this place, and my eye, still sore from the stitches lacing the skin there, stings harshly. Without thinking, my palm is already covering the area, trying to will away the pain. Through my good eye, I can see her coming down the few steps leading down from the market square to where I am. Some kids, reckless with the sun hot on their backs rush past her and she twists on her heels, taken aback in a delighted way, and her skirt flutters open like a bell around her, then calms just as suddenly. The basket on her arm is full with fruits and cloth and some pretty thing that she's probably bought for Rikku.

It would be easier to hate her, if I could, instead of getting this stab of feeling, the guilt and the happiness and the jealous longing.

"Stop leering."

Her hands are sudden and swift, latching onto my wrist and twisting my arm behind me. She laughs lightly, victorious and proud, as she presses herself forward so that I can feel the sweltering heat of her entire body against my back.

"Heard you from a mile away Cid's girl", I bite on my smile.

Rikku detaches herself from me, detangling her body from mine like a sinuous vine. "Liar", she laughs and accuses.

I cradle my wrist slightly -she's stronger than before and she's making sure I know it. She's left little crescents in my skin where her nails dug in purposely, and I know she hasn't forgiven me completely yet for all the wrongs I've done her by leaving to fight my battles.

I watch Rikku out of the corner of my eye -an old habit -because neither of us would admit to looking at each other full in the face unless there is a challenge to be met or a dare to be issued. Her hair is still golden, lightening from the sun's constant touch, and is shorter, more jagged, like harsh, electric waves just below her shoulders. "It got so hot that summer", she had explained easily when I had asked her, "so I just...", she flicked open her knife and motioned with clean cuts in the air. _You look prettier this way_, I thought. "You look like a boy", I said, and the small knife came hurtling at me while I grinned and ducked to the side.

"What's wrong with you?"

I frown deeply and lick my lips, and Yuna is dragging her fingers softly across a blue, silk ribbon at a merchant's stall.

"Nothing", I say, and I realize too late that I've said it too strongly.

Rikku rests her head back on the brick wall behind us, and smirks at no one, "You're mad at her, but you can't keep your eyes off her."

I hit her arm, and her eyes fly open, accusing and angry. "Go get Yuna, we're going home", I see resistance in her eyes and nudge her again to shake it out of her, or ignite it, whichever happens first.

"Fine", a tilt of her head to the side, a playfulness in her step, a swing to her hips, and she's teasing me. She tells Yuna something else entirely, I'm sure, and thinks she knows what's best for me. She disappears in the shifting strain of crowd, but my eyes weren't on her anyway.

Rikku has grown into herself, she knows who she is, and she doesn't mind it. She knows who I am and she wants me, no matter what. This woman with the cropped hair, and the music in her eyes when she sees me, is creating her own heartbreak and she couldn't care less. I cross my arms and hope that one day she'll wake up, grow out of it, hate me and hit the road without looking back. She won't, though. She's like me, and I'm not a quitter. I take myself to the point of destruction just to see what's there, to see if I can defeat it. "You're a reckless man", Cid told me when I was strong enough to open my eyes, "but you're also brave, and damn lucky." _Tell that to the blood on my hands, _I scowled, _or to the bodies I carved through. Tell it to the bastard that meant to get his blade across my throat but missed and cut an ugly line near my eye when I pushed him to the ground._

I touch the scar and it burns hot white, struggling between infection and healing.

I can't make up for all of my mistakes; I can only carry them with me.

Yuna is already at my side, basket set on a patch of grass with her gentle hands lying on either side of my face. "Is it your eye again? Come closer", but I've already pulled away, wanting to be mean.

"Wouldn't dare", I say, sarcasm edging into my voice, and she catches it as a blade cutting into her palm.

Her voice is quiet when she speaks again, though she is not defeated, "How am I to help you then, if you will not allow me?"

"Forget it. I don't need your help", I lean against the brick wall again, the sweat prickling at the back of my neck. "You can't fix it anyway, just, alleviate the pain. And", I slump to the ground and give her a sickly, bitter smile, "what's life without pain."

She crouches before me and settles between my upraised knees, finger gently tilting my chin up. Her palm is smooth and cool like porcelain against my forehead, and the sky is burning red and copper like a newly lit fire when my eyes turn up to see it. A quiet laugh puffs out of my lips, and I can't believe the sky is the same colour dying soldiers were soaked in, but, they had no choice anyway. There is a stunned silence in the breeze, and it is just as disbelieving as I am, because the war can't be over, not when I can feel the sting of my wounds through my clothes, not when there are bombs and screams and yelling bombarding my ears.

I open my eyes, just realizing that I must've closed them to relieve some of my senses, and I'm tucked to her shoulder. I nuzzle the skin there and she shivers, and my arms were already around her waist, trying to keep a hold of reality. _I don't have nightmares when I sleep_, I want to tell her, _I have them when I'm awake_. But Yuna already knows. I must've flinched, I must've thought I heard a rifle firing off, and her fingers are wondrously gentle in my hair as she whispers, "It's just the ocean. It's alright."

_It's just the ocean_, I think, _and I'm not dying_.

"Yuna", my mouth is on her neck, and her name is muffled and harsh, and the feeling is too strong for her because she makes a sound like a whimper and already, she wants to run away. "Don't", I say, and it's a demand, an order, because I need her, and she mustn't be scared of me.

Her breathing is just as ragged as mine, and I can feel the tremble in her as my hands rise closer, nearer, and her heart would be unsteady and nervous beneath my palms, if only she would let me...

"Please", she says, and I'm caught, I halt, because I know she means to say "Stop."

I still have her around the waist, because I don't want to relinquish her so easily, and she does not object, only falls back to rest on her heels. I lean back and find myself in the world I left, the one that pretends to be normal, and anger finds me again because I can't have her no matter how hard I try. And our lips are close enough, though she would be reluctant but yielding, and I would be greedy and grateful, yet there is still distance between us and too many lines I cannot cross. She pulls back from me slowly and my hands slip away, and she takes my other hand in hers, apologizing, but I am still cruel to her in my smirk.

"Of course. How could I ever force you to give me what I want, when you would give it so willingly to another man?", and I might as well have struck her across the face for the wideness in her eyes, and the injury of the insult that lies so perfectly in the ready tears at her lashes. I wish she would slap me, but she doesn't, only bows her head and pulls away her pretty hand so that it slips from mine.

"Where is Tidus anyway", I tilt her chin up to me, and the sight of her tears, straining to fall but imprisoned by the picket fence of her lashes, jars me. She twists her head and hides her face in my palm, and it is shocking how she forgives me even a little, how she cannot console herself but looks to the person who caused the pain to take it away as well.

"Gone", she whimpers the answer against me.

I knew this, long before -that Tidus had left the same night I lay nearly dying, with my eyes straining to open. I remember Yuna abandoning me for his voice, though the fever had took me out of the conscious world soon after. I had seen the eagerness in her eyes, the love and devotion that wasn't mine, and knew that all I could have for her was this anger that came from wanting to be the reason she _stayed_ instead of left to see him.

"I know. Yuna, look at me."

She won't, and I have to hoist her up as gently as I can, with my hands, too strong, too unkind, clasped at her forearms. It is a shock for her when my arms enclose her completely because she hasn't felt this in so long, hasn't allowed me just as I haven't allowed myself. My fingers fist the material of her dress, wanting more than just the heat of her body and the tense of her back.

"Why didn't you leave with him?" I ask, and it is harsh with hurt.

"I _couldn't_."

"Of course," I scoff angrily, "I was _dying_. If I wasn't-"

Her voice is surprisingly strong with conviction when she muffles her words against my chest, "No. I...I still would not have left. You...and Rikku..." Softly, brushing against my neck, "We need each other."

I lay my cheek against her hair, and from a distance, I can see green eyes like mine and a smile that is knowing and forgiving.

"I know", I say,"...I know."


End file.
